MOVIE NEWS – Guillermo del Toro is looking to make a new adaptation of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary.

Acclaimed filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is constantly at work, completing one project after another – he even recently had time to “borrow” his look to one of the characters in the Death Stranding Director’s Cut, Deadman! However, there is one particular Stephen King story that he is keen to expand his creative oeuvre with. With his appreciation for the horror genre and his wealth of experience, it was only natural that one of King’s stories would catch del Toro’s interest. As he recently explained on The Kingcast podcast, the filmmaker is now drawn to Pet Semetary. The story has particularly haunted him since becoming a father himself.

“You know the novel that I would have killed to adapt…”

“…and I know there’s two versions of it, and I still think maybe in a deranged universe I get to do it again one day is Pet Sematary. Because it not only has the very best final couple of lines, but it scared me when I was a young man. As a father, I now understand it better than I ever would have, and it scares me. A hundred times more.”

There is undoubtedly logic in del Toro’s argument. Pet Sematary follows Louis Creed, a doctor who moves his family to a new home in rural Maine to start a new life. Unfortunately, his young son Gage is killed in a car accident, and the grieving father cannot move on. The boy is buried in a local cemetery, where he is haunted by supernatural forces that bring Gage back to life, but he is no longer the sweet and innocent child he was, but something else entirely…

Guillermo del Toro also admits that the chances of an adaptation of Pet Semetary seem slim, as there have already been several adaptations. The original film, directed by Mary Lambert, was released in 1989 and is still considered a classic of the horror genre and one of the best Stephen King-based films. After Lambert made the sequel, which was not as successful, the franchise was recently rebooted and made into a new film in 2019 by directors Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch. It received mixed reviews, with many fans saying it didn’t live up to the original, although others appreciated the spice up of the story and alternative take on the plot.

Plans are also underway to expand the franchise further with an upcoming prequel film, which will be streamed in advance and set the plot decades earlier than the original story. Given that the chances of another reboot are slim indeed, it’s questionable when  Guillermo del Toro’s dream could come true – if ever.

Source: The Kingcast