While Warner Bros. continues to sit on his adaptation of the Stephen King novel Salem’s Lot, filmmaker Gary Dauberman has gone on to sign a first-look feature deal with Sony’s Screen Gems, where he is expected to “create projects for himself while curating a slate featuring established and up-and-coming filmmakers.” One of the projects he has set up at Screen Gems is the video game adaptation Until Dawn, which will be directed by David F. Sandberg. Now Deadline has revealed that Dauberman is going to be producing a film called Ushers for Screen Gems… and we have no idea what Ushers is about, because it’s based on a short story by author Joe Hill (who happens to be a son of Stephen King) that has never been published!
Dauberman and his team at the Coin Operated production company will develop and produce Ushers, with Coin Operated’s President, Mia Maniscalco, also earning a producer credit. Ashley Brucks and Michael Bitar are overseeing the project for the studio.
The film’s screenplay is being written by Zak Olkewicz, whose previous credits include The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Bullet Train, and Fear Street: Part Two – 1978. Olkewicz was also a co-producer on the Sandberg-directed horror film Lights Out.
Joe Hill’s works have previously inspired the films Horns, In the Tall Grass, and The Black Phone, as well as the TV shows NOS4A2 and Locke & Key. A few of his stories have been turned into segments of the anthology series Creepshow – which is very appropriate, since not only did his dad create the Creepshow franchise with George A. Romero, but Hill also had an acting role in the original film. The Black Phone director Scott Derrickson is currently working on a sequel that’s scheduled to reach theatres next year.
Last month, Hill mentioned on social media that the Ushers short story is going to be included in an anthology called New Demons, which will soon be launching a Kickstarter campaign. Hill wrote, “I wrote half a dozen short stories last year – I don’t know which is best, but Ushers was my particular favorite.”
Are you interested in seeing how this Gary Dauberman / Joe Hill project is going to turn out? Share your thoughts on Ushers by leaving a comment below.