Renowned author Stephen King has called out Warner Bros. for holding back the new Salem's Lot remake, saying he has watched the film and it's "quite good."
Distribution plans for the long-awaited Salem's Lot remake remain unclear after Warner Bros. removed the Gary Dauberman-directed feature from its release slate last year. It turns out that King is as much in the dark as everyone else despite having watched the latest adaptation of his 1975 novel and giving it a glowing review.
"Between you and me, Twitter, I've seen the new SALEM'S LOT and it's quite good," the legendary author said in a recent post on X/Twitter. "Old-school horror filmmaking: slow build, big payoff. Not sure why WB is holding it back; not like it's embarrassing, or anything. Who knows. I just write the f**king things."
Between you and me, Twitter, I've seen the new SALEM'S LOT and it's quite good. Old-school horror filmmaking: slow build, big payoff. Not sure why WB is holding it back; not like it's embarrassing, or anything. Who knows. I just write the fucking things.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) February 19, 2024
Dauberman's success on James Wan's Conjuring Universe undoubtedly played a part in him writing and directing the Salem's Lot remake, given that Wan is one of the film's producers. It's a story about a small-town vampire plague that's already had a late-70s miniseries, but the new iteration still doesn't have a release date.
Warner Bros. initially gave the Salem's Lot remake a 2022 release window, but that didn't hold as the studio pushed back its release date to 2023 before removing it from its schedule entirely, leading to concerns among some fans that the vampy flick would never see the light of day, like several other projects the studio scrapped.
It was reported in October last year that Warner Bros. was looking to move the release of the Salem's Lot remake to Max, even though Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav had previously announced that the company was strategically shifting away from direct-to-streaming releases and would instead focus on theatrical releases.
Warner Bros. has come under fire for its controversial decisions in recent months, which include cancelling complete or nearly finished films like Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme to turn them into tax write-offs. The studio has faced massive backlash from fans, the creative community, and a U.S. congressman who called for the FTC to review WB's "predatory tactic" of scrapping movies for tax purposes.
Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on X/Twitter @AdeleAnkers.
