It’s always interesting to find out what could have been.
Stephen King’s novella Cycle of the Werewolf, released in 1983 and illustrated by the late Bernie Wrightson, was of course turned into the feature film Silver Bullet, released in 1985 and directed by Dan Attias. The film, which starred Corey Haim and Gary Busey, is one of the most beloved King adaptations – but did you know that it was almost directed by a true master of horror?
Speaking with Mick Garris on the latest episode of the podcast Post Mortem, Phantasm director Don Coscarelli revealed that he was at one point attached to direct Cycle of the Werewolf!
So what happened? Coscarelli explains:
I worked on a project that I didn’t ultimately direct. It was a Stephen King story… Cycle of the Werewolf. I had made this movie, The Beastmaster. And for some reason this Italian movie producer, Dino De Laurentiis, seized on it that I would be the heir to direct the Conan series. He wanted me to direct Conan part 2. Unfortunately, they gave me a screenplay that… I just didn’t get it at all. And I had just made The Beastmaster… I just couldn’t in good conscience see how I could go to Mexico for months and make another sword and sorcery film without a script that I felt good about. So I turned down Dino De Laurentiis, which… I think it had an affect on him. Cause within a month he came back and he said, ‘I’ve got this Stephen King book, I want you to read it.’ And I read it. The problem was, it wasn’t a book – it was actually a calendar at the time. [The story] was right up my alley.
So there was no screenplay. Stephen [King] was not available to write the screenplay. So I had to do an adaptation of the calendar and turn it into a screenplay. There were major adaptation problems that we were struggling with. One day Stephen came to New York. It was the one time I got to meet him. Such a nice guy. Funny, self effacing. Not what you’d expect. He sat there and listened to me just prattle on [about the issues]. He said, ‘I don’t have time to write it, but I’ll think about it.’ And so King went away. One day I got the word that Stephen had sent some notes. There were three, single spaced pages of notes. He answered every problem. Everything. So we go in to have a meeting with Dino De Laurentiis. He didn’t get it. Didn’t want it.
After that, I ended up leaving the project.
Perhaps some things just aren’t meant to be.
