Even though we don't see John Cusack garner the kind of A-list attention that he used to, he's still every bit of a badass. He pops up all over the place these days in supporting roles with the most recent being the pissed off gunman in the Hitchcockian thriller GRAND PIANO. The reason why Cusack makes horror news today is because during a recent Reddit AMA, he was asked if there was a role he would take in a heartbeat, in which he answered with Stephen King's DOCTOR SLEEP—and I don't blame him either. It's a powerful story that can really get under your skin, and I can see Cusack fitting the role to a T. Right now there's no telling if DOCTOR SLEEP is even headed to the big screen anytime soon, but IF it ever does, I think Cusack would be the perfect fit.
For those of you unfamiliar with King's latest novel, it serves as a sequel to THE SHINING in which we see a middle-aged Danny Torrence up against another evil, the True Knot.
Young psychic Danny Torrance has become a middle-aged alcoholic (he now goes by Dan), bearing his powers and his guilt as equal burdens. A lucky break gets him a job in a hospice in a small New England town. Using his abilities to ease the passing of the terminally ill, he remains blissfully unaware of the actions of the True Knot, a caravan of human parasites crisscrossing the map in their RVs as they search for children with the shining (psychic abilities of the kind that Dan possesses), upon whom they feed. When a girl named Abra Stone is born with powers that dwarf Dan's, she attracts the attention of the True Knot's leader—the predatory Rose the Hat. Dan is forced to help Abra confront the Knot, and face his own lingering demons.
As cool as it would be to see Cusack headline a DOCTOR SLEEP adaptation, it's just wishful thinking at this point and may never happen. What IS actually happening, however, is the CELL adaptation from director Todd Williams in which we will see Cusack star alongside Samuel L. Jackson, Isabelle Fuhrman and Stacy Keach. And who knows, maybe if Cusack knocks this one out of the park, he'll be a sure bet for DOCTOR SLEEP if/when it happens!