James Wan & Gary Dauberman team up to adapt Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

The onslaught of Stephen King adaptations continues and the next one on the slate will be a feature-film adaptation of "Salem's Lot." THR has reported that James Wan and Gary Dauberman, the minds behind THE CONJURING franchise, have teamed up to adapt the novel for New Line Cinema.

Surprisingly, "Salem's Lot" has never actually made it to the big-screen, but it has been adapted to the small-screen twice before, once in 1979 for a mini-series starring David Soul (which spawned a sequel) and again in 2004 with Rob Lowe taking on the main role. The story follows a writer who returns to his hometown of Salem's Lot in order to write about the Marsten House, an old mansion. Once there, he discovers that the mansion has been bought by the mysterious Kurt Barlow and comes to realize that the townspeople are being turned into vampires. Together with a small group, the writer attempts to halt the spread of the vampires and confront Barlow. The 1979 mini-series is one of my very favourite Stephen King projects, but I can also admit that there's room for improvement. Gary Dauberman will pen the script for SALEM'S LOT as well as serve as executive producer alongside James Wan. There's no director attached just yet, but THR notes that both Dauberman and Wan make compelling candidates.

Gary Dauberman will be making his directorial debut with the upcoming ANNABELLE COMES HOME on June 28, 2019. As for Wan, the director doesn't officially have anything lined up in the foreseeable future, but it's expected that he'll return for the AQUAMAN sequel which is already slated for a December 16, 2022 release.