After being in limbo for roughly two years, Warner Bros. Discovery has finally shared an update on Salem's Lot, the film remake based on the 1975 Stephen King novel of the same name, revealing that the film will ditch a theatrical release and will instead premiere on the streaming service Max.
Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed the change in a press release; however, the company revealed that the film will premiere sometime this year. Salem's Lot is a supernatural horror film starring Lewis Pullman, a writer who returns to his childhood home for inspiration only to discover a vampire terrorizing the town.
There had been talks dating back to last October that the film would skip the theaters altogether and instead release on Max. The announcement comes weeks after Stephen King called out Warner Bros. Discovery for holding the film's release for no reason.
Salem's Lot was supposed to be released on September 9, 2022, but after the merger of Warner Bros. and Discovery Inc., the film's theatrical release was pushed back to April 2023. The film would not meet that release date as WBD would remove it from the theatrical release schedule last year.
The film had been in development for years. In 2019, the production company and WBD subsidiary New Line Cinema announced that James Wan and Gary Dauberman were tied to the project, with the former serving as a co-producer and the latter both writing and directing the film. The duo were a natural fit to bring Salem's Lot to the big screen as both have found major success for their involvement in films set in The Conjuring universe, which has produced a slate of successful horror films over the last decade.
With a new release window and release plan set, Salem's Lot is one of the few films not to get canned by WBD when the entertainment conglomerate is facing scrutiny for canning projects that are either completed or near completion. The most famous examples include Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme. In the case of the latter, it has sparked an internet campaign to pressure the company to release the film instead of shelving and deleting the project in favor of a tax break.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
