After a number of lengthy delays, we finally have an official premiere date for Warner Bros. and New Line's re-adaptation of Stephen King's Salem's Lot.
Max has announced that the movie will debut on the streaming service on October 3rd.
It's been two years since this movie was originally supposed to hit theaters, and director Gary Dauberman has now revealed that King was instrumental in securing a streaming release.
It seems this 2023 Tweet from the legendary writer got things moving.
"I’m extremely thankful for Steve’s support," the filmmaker tells Total Film. When asked for more details, Dauberman added: "Let’s just say it provided some shock support for some of the more bumpy portions of this journey and leave it at that."
Check out a new image of Lewis Pullman as Ben Mears below.
"Salem's Lot is such a special book because there's a lot of macro sociopolitical themes in there. It's not just a horror book," Pullman said of this latest take on the story in a recent interview. "How Gary approached it was almost like, this is not a horror movie. This is a movie about a small town in America where something horrific happens. He was trying to also rekindle the fire of mystique about vampires. They've shifted in many different ways over the last couple of decades in terms of pop culture. I think Gary really wanted to return back to this very mysterious, almost mythological lens on them."
Last year, we got word that Warner Bros. had pushed Salem's Lot back to April 21, 2023 after previously planning to release it on September 9, 2022 Since then, the movie appeared to be removed from the schedule altogether, and there were concerns that it may be shelved following David Zaslav's decision to write off the Batgirl movie.
Then, back in March, New Line confirmed the rumor that the vampire horror film will skip theaters altogether and debut on the Max streaming service. Previous trade reports have noted that this "is not a reflection of the film’s quality, but is due to the fact that the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike has created a growing need for Max content.".
King's novel tells the story of a writer named Ben Mears who returns to his childhood town of Jerusalem's Lot, only to find himself drawn to an old house that traumatized him as a child. The Marsten House is an evil place, and an evil place attracts evil men. Unfortunately for Ben and the rest of the town, this time the evil men in question are powerful vampire Kurt Barlow and his devious familiar Richard Straker.
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