DOCTOR SLEEP Director Mike Flanagan Still Mourns the Loss of Another Stephen King Film Project

After directing the film adaptation of Stephen King’S Doctor Sleepdirector Mike Flanagan was developing another film project by the Master of Horror, an adaptation of the book Rebirth.

I was very excited that that book was being made into a movie, but unfortunately, after Doctor Sleep It had a disappointing box office, Warner Bros. was stupid enough to scrap it Rebirth.

Rebirth is described as a dark tale of addiction, fanaticism, and what might exist on the other side of life. It centers on the Reverend Charles Jacobs, “a minister from Harlow, Maine, who shares a secret obsession with the boy Jamie Morton, an attraction so powerful it has profound consequences five decades after the shocking tragedy that turned the preacher against God, and long after his final, searing sermon.

“Jamie grows up to be a heroin-addicted nomadic rock guitarist, meets Charles Jacobs again, and their bond becomes a pact beyond the devil’s imagination.”

During a panel at Fan Expo Canada, via Screen Rant, he said he is still grieving the loss of that production.

Flanagan said: “I wrote a script from Rebirth which I love. Man, it’s dark. We did the ending and, if you’ve read it, it’s one of the darkest, most chilling endings that King has ever done, including Pet cemetery.

“It’s dark, but man, I loved that script. When people ask me what the phantom limb is, what the project that got away, it’s always going to be Rebirth.”

Speaking about why the studio pulled the plug on the project, the director said: “I had written it for Warner Brothers right after we started shooting. Doctor SleepBut Doctor Sleep it didn’t work at the box office.

“I’m enormously proud of the film, and I hear from fans that it seems to have grown, but it hasn’t lived up to the studio’s expectations. And so a lot of the projects we had at Warner Brothers died as a result, and Rebirth he was one of them.”

He continued: “I’ve been grieving it ever since, but I don’t have the rights to it. It’s gone. And Steve, very wisely, doesn’t like to burden the same director with more than one thing because it means something isn’t progressing.

“There are other Stephen King properties that I’m attached to that took precedence over this one, and the choice was whether to continue with those or try to take Revival somewhere else.

“We let it go, but I still miss that movie. Maybe it will come back. You never know with these things.”

Maybe one day Rebirth will eventually get a film adaptation, but I long to see Flanagan’s version of the story and there’s a good chance that will never happen.