Most of Stephen King’s stories have been adapted at least once over the years, but the same cannot be said for Gerald’s Game. The suspense novel, released in 1992, was long considered to be completely “unfilmable,” but that all changes when Netflix unleashes its Mike Flanagan-directed adaptation later this year. The film, according to its producer, will be a faithful adaptation.
Speaking with Daily Dead, Trevor Macy said of the upcoming Netflix original:
Well, I’m a big fan of the book as well, and one of the more fulfilling moments in my professional life was showing this cut to Stephen King and having him tweet how excited he was about it. I think the challenge with that—if you’re a fan of the book, so much of it takes place internally, in her [Jessie’s] head. So, “how do you do that in a cinematic way?” was the fundamental question when you’re taking that particular book into movie land. It isn’t done quite the way it’s done in the book, but I’m very proud of it, and fortunately Stephen King’s very proud of it, so I think audiences are going to like it.
It’s a very faithful adaptation in that way, it’s just that there’s a—I don’t mean to be too cryptic, but I don’t want to give it away [laughs]. There’s a storytelling device that we use that the book doesn’t. It’s really nice to get Stephen King’s support in doing that, even at the script stage, so he feels and we feel that it’s a very faithful adaptation.
It’s a movie that genre fans will love, but it’s not only a genre movie, and Netflix is a great place for things like that these days.
Stephen King recently saw the movie and called it “Horrifying, hypnotic, terrific.”
In the Netflix film, based on the 1992 novel, “a woman accidentally kills her husband after being handcuffed to a bed, leaving her unable to free herself. As time passes and she realizes that rescue is an all but hopeless thought, she begins to slip into insanity, the voices in her head manifesting into visions.”
Flanagan and Jeff Howard adapted the novel.
The cast includes Carla Gugino, Henry Thomas, Bruce Greenwood, and Kate Siegel.
