Movies
Netflix Bringing Stephen King’s ‘CUJO’ Back to Life With a New Movie
Stephen King’s killer canine is coming back to life, with Deadline reporting this afternoon that Netflix and producer Roy Lee (IT) are developing a brand new Cujo movie.
The project “will go out to writers immediately,” Deadline notes in today’s report.
No other information has been announced at this time. Stay tuned for more.
Stephen King’s horror novel Cujo was originally published in 1981, with director Lewis Teague’s classic horror movie adaptation being unleashed just two years later in 1983. Dee Wallace, Ed Lauter, Daniel Hugh Kelly, and Danny Pintauro starred in the original adaptation of Cujo, wherein a friendly St. Bernard contracts rabies and embarks on a reign of terror.
Here’s the full synopsis for King’s novel: “Outside a peaceful town in central Maine, a monster is waiting. Cujo is a two-hundred-pound Saint Bernard, the best friend Brett Camber has ever had. One day, Cujo chases a rabbit into a cave inhabited by sick bats and emerges as something new altogether.
“Meanwhile, Vic and Donna Trenton, and their young son Tad, move to Maine. They are seeking peace and quiet, but life in this small town is not what it seems…
“As Tad tries to fend off the terror that comes to him at night from his bedroom closet, and as Vic and Donna face their own nightmare of a marriage on the rocks, there is no way they can know that a monster, infinitely sinister, waits in the daylight.”
It was announced ten years ago that Sunn Classic Pictures was behind a new Cujo adaptation titled C.U.J.O. (“Canine Unit Joint Operations”), but that project never got off the ground.
Stephen King recently returned to the world of Cujo for a short story sequel titled Rattlesnakes. The long-awaited follow-up tale debuted in last year’s King anthology You Like It Darker.
Below you can listen to a talk about the making of the original Cujo with Bloody FM’s King podcast The Losers’ Club, who spoke to Dee Wallace at last year’s Creep I.E. Aftermath.
Before updating the video nasty Faces of Death, director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei explored the dangers of online life in tech-thriller Cam, their feature debut that was acquired by Netflix in 2018 after making waves on the festival circuit.
At the end of last year, the Netflix exclusive quietly departed from the streaming platform, left without another streaming home.
It’s not an isolated story; Mike Flanagan’s Hush also left streaming entirely for a period until it was finally picked up on both physical media and other streaming services.
While the tech-thriller currently isn’t available to watch on Netflix, Tubi, Hulu, or any other platforms, that’s not a problem for Cam thanks to a very cool move by Goldhaber: the director has made his breakout film accessible to watch online for free via his website.
As his site notes: “CAM is unfortunately not currently available to view on any platforms, so you can watch it here if you like :).“
No subscriptions or fees necessary, just hit play.
Cam follows Alice (Madeline Brewer), who works as an online cam girl obsessed with her ranking on the cam site. The higher her ranking goes, the more it draws unwanted attention, and Alice soon finds herself replaced on her own show with a doppelganger.
Written by Mazzei, a former camgirl, it uses the horror thriller premise to examine the life of a sex worker; Alice’s career ambition is directly at odds with the shame it brings to her family, and how she tries to spare them from it by keeping them in the dark. It only compounds her danger when the doppelganger enters the equation in Goldhaber’s engaging thriller.
For a deep dive into the treacherous world of Cam, listen to Horror Queers’ episode on it now.
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