The long-anticipated film adaption of the Stephen King and Peter Straub fantasy novel The Talisman has found a writer in New Mutants director Josh Boone. A film based on the novel The Talisman is something fans have been waiting more than 30 years for. Universal purchased the rights to the book in the same year it was published - 1984 - for Stephen Spielberg to direct. More than a decade later, rumors about the film named Will Smith as the favorite to play Lester "Speedy" Parker. Longtime Stephen King collaborator Mick Garris planned to make it into a miniseries - as he had done with numerous King books before - but current rights owner Amblin Entertainment chose to do a film instead.

The Talisman tells the story of 12-year-old Jack Sawyer, who is taught to travel between our world and a parallel one known to him as 'The Territories' by a man named Speedy Parker. Jack then begins to cross the country on foot, traveling from New England to California, in order to find the mystical talisman that will save the life of his mother, who is dying from cancer. He finds evil chasing him in both worlds, largely due to doubles of the same cruel people - known as 'twinners' - living in both places. The book was successful enough to spawn a sequel titled Black House and a comic book adaption.

Now it looks like Amblin has settled on a screenwriter. Variety is reporting that Josh Boone - director of The Fault in Our Stars and writer/director of the upcoming New Mutants - has been tapped to write the screenplay.

Boone has quite the recent history with King. He is writing and directing adaptions of some of the author's other books - The Stand and Lisey's Story - and also working on the screenplay for another King adaption - Revival. Recently he also executive produced a short film based on King's short story My Pretty Pony. Whether he will direct The Talisman as well as write it remains to be seen at this time.

It seems like there is nearly always some work of King's being adapted for the big screen or television, and 2017 is no exception. The Dark Tower and IT were both in theaters in the last few months, the latter has become the most financially successful horror film of all time. And on TV there's Mr. Mercedes and the upcoming Hulu series Castle Rock. Straub on the other hand has not had a filmed adaption  of one of his novels since the 1981 film Ghost Story - in spite of many award nominations and wins for his horror novels.

Next: New Mutants Will Do The ‘Comics Justice’

At this time, there is no release date set for The Talisman. Keep reading Screen Rant for the latest updates on the long-awaited film.

Source: Variety