Sam Raimi is producing an adaptation of the James Herbert novel Shrine

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Thirty-five years after it was first published, author James Herbert's novel SHRINE (you can buy a copy HERE) is getting the cinematic adaptation treatment. The project is set up at Screen Gems, with genre icon Sam Raimi producing the film alongside Rob Tapert through their company Ghost House.

Evan Spiliotopoulos, whose credits include a bunch of Disney projects, among them last year's massive hit BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, will be writing the screenplay and is also taking the helm of SHRINE, making this his feature directorial debut.

The film will tell the story of 

a disgraced journalist who discovers a series of seemingly divine miracles in a small New England town and uses them to resurrect his career. But the “miracles” may have a much darker source.

The description of the novel goes like this:

A deaf-mute little girl called Alice has a vision — a lady in shimmering white who says she is the immaculate conception. Suddnely, Alice can hear, speak, and perform miracles. Soon the site of Alice's visitation, beneath an ancient oak tree, becomes a shrine, a holy place for thousands of pilgrims. But Alice is no longer the guileless child overwhelmed by her new saintliness. She has become the agent of something corrupt, a vile force that is centuries old.

Although Herbert has been called "the UK's Stephen King" and 54 million copies of his 23 books have been sold worldwide, very few of his stories have been brought to the screen. Herbert stories did serve as the basis for the 1981 plane crash mystery THE SURVIVOR, the 1982 killer rat movie DEADLY EYES, the 1995 family film FLUKE, the ghost story HAUNTED (also released in 1995), and the 2012 supernatural mystery mini-series The Secret of Crickley Hall.

Herbert passed away in 2013, just a few weeks short of his 70th birthday.

Romel Adam is overseeing the SHRINE adaptation for Ghost House, while Scott Strauss and Michael Bitar oversee for Screen Gems.