Screen Rights to Stephen King’s Joyland Snapped Up

Steve Barton |

May 2, 2013

Source Name:

Deadline

Source Url:

http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/stephen-king-options-upcoming-novel-joyland-to-the-help-helmer-tate-taylor/

Post Thumb:

/sep12/joylands.jpg

Screen Rights to Stephen King's Joyland Snapped Up How good is legendary author Stephen King? So good that the rights to bring his works of fiction to the big screen get snapped up before the book has a chance to be released. That’s pretty friggin’ good. Next on tap for Hollywood… Joyland!

Deadline reports that Tate Taylor, who launched his writing and directing career by getting the option on The Help before author Kathryn Stockett was done writing it, has gotten himself on the ground floor of another sure-fire bestseller. Taylor has been granted an option by Stephen King to adapt and direct Joyland, the King novel that will be published in June. Taylor will adapt to direct, and John Norris will produce through his Wyolah Films banner. Taylor will also produce.

Set in a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973, Joyland tells the story of a college student who moonlights as a carnival worker. There, he confronts the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and the ways both will forever change his life. It’s got all the makings of a King potboiler, with crime, mystery, ghosts, and a creepy carnival setting. The book is being published through Hard Case Crime, the line of pulp-styled crime paperbacks published by Titan Books.