Hannibal TV show creator Bryan Fuller will direct a new adaptation of Stephen King’s Christine. The first time Christine was adapted for the screen, legendary horror director John Carpenter took on the challenge of bringing King’s killer car to life.
King’s original Christine novel was published in 1983. The story concerns a bullied high school kid named Arnie who buys a broken down 1958 Plymouth Fury from a shady man, not knowing the car has a haunted past. Once in possession of the car, which he names Christine, Arnie undergoes a transformation while the possessed vehicle itself goes on a murderous rampage. Carpenter’s 1983 movie adaptation proved to be a straight-forward translation of the book’s action, with Keith Gordon as Arnie and John Stockwell as his best friend Dennis. The movie went on to gross $21 million on a $10 million budget and now has a reputation as a cult classic.
It’s been nearly 40 years since Christine first revved her engines on the big screen and now the book is getting a new adaptation with Hannibal creator Fuller writing and directing (via Deadline). Jason Blum is producing for his Blumhouse Pictures, along with Vincenzo Natali and Steven Hoban. Interestingly, Fuller's adaptation will reportedly preserve the original novel and film's 1980s setting.
Fans didn’t know it at the time but Fuller gave everyone a hint he was keen to take on Christine when he appeared last December on the popular podcast The Kingcast in order to discuss the book and Carpenter's adaptation. Among other things, Fuller got into the gay subtext of Christine, which revolves around a male friendship and concerns a non-human antagonist that can easily be read as a scorned female seeking jealous revenge. Given Fuller’s own history of weaving queer themes into works like Hannibal, it’s safe to say his adaptation of Christine will likely bring out this subtext in ways Carpenter’s film didn’t (or couldn’t).
Obviously there has been a glut of King adaptations in recent years, and there are even more in the pipeline. Many of these adaptations have tackled more recent works like Lisey’s Story and The Outsider, but filmmakers are also hyped to revisit older King works with an eye toward improving on those earlier versions. Firestarter is one early ‘80s King title that’s set to be adapted anew, and Christine now joins it. Fuller is obviously a huge King fan as he’s shown, while he also demonstrated his ability to put interesting new spins on literary adaptations with his offbeat TV series take on Hannibal Lecter. Given all that, he seems like a perfect person to not only adapt Christine but bring out some thematic shadings that went undeveloped in the first movie adaptation, which was frankly a quick and dirty horror film with little but cheap thrills on its mind. If Fuller's fans can't have Hannibal season 4, at least they can have his take on a King classic.
Source: Deadline