Entertainment
The Only Stephen King Story Hollywood Considers Impossible To Film
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Stephen King is one of the most prolific authors in history, with hundreds of stories under his name, and it seems an equal number of movie and television adaptations. In the last decade, multiple Hollywood producers and writers have attempted to adapt his 2014 novel, Revival. All of them have given up at the same point in the story.
Hollywood turned a story about a killer car and another a killer immortal clown alien into hits, so what is it about Revival that makes it unfilmable? It’s the climax, which takes a turn so wild and bizarre that it can’t be translated to the screen. For a Stephen King story, that says a lot.
Stephen King Takes On Frankenstein
For starters, Revival is the most religious of King’s works. The horror centers around a Methodist minister, Charles Jacobs, and his perfect family with his wife, Patsy. Beloved by the people of Harlow, a small town in Maine (What a twist!), Charles is the perfect man of God…until his family is killed in a car accident and he suddenly turns against God. The novel then jumps years at a time, as we see Charles fall from grace to a sideshow carnival act and then to a faith healer using electricity to perform miracles.
James, a young man in Harlow when Charles arrived, crosses paths with the former holy man at different points, and even willingly accepts one of his “cures” to help curb his heroin addiction. Slowly, James realizes that everyone Charles heals has gone mad. There’s no rational explanation for what’s going on, except that in his grief, Charles has become obsessed with the afterlife. That’s the point where Hollywood writers Josh Boone, who helped adapt The Stand (2020), and Mike Flanagan, a modern Master of Horror himself, couldn’t break the script into something filmable.
Revival is Stephen King’s take on Frankenstein, but even that doesn’t get across how bonkers the third act gets once Charles succeeds in his mad experiment. The best comparison is to H.P. Lovecraft and his take on the Elder Gods, which makes sense that Boone and Flanagan would run into the problem of a gigantic budget to bring the final act of the story to life. Even IT, which includes a giant space turtle, doesn’t reach the level of Revival’s reveal of what happens to humans when we die.
A Story Too Big For Movie Theaters
It’s now been five years since anyone has publicly talked about adapting Revival into a film or mini-series. IT: Welcome to Derry has turned King adaptations into a hot commodity again, with Castle Rock and 11.22.63 finding new legions of fans in the wake of the HBO series’ success. Someone’s going to take another crack at the faith-based supernatural horror, but unless something dramatically changes with Hollywood budgets, they’re also doomed to failure.
Horror is wildly popular in Hollywood, not because of a love for the genre, but because it tends to be cheap to produce. It’s why, when a character hits the public domain, the first thing that happens is a slew of cheap horror movies. It’s a shame that to do Revival justice means a significantly higher budget, but it is also King’s best story in years. Until a Hollywood executive throws superhero levels of money at Mike Flanagan, take the time to grab the novel and give it a read. Once the lightning strikes, you’ll know why it’s one of King’s wildest novels and why two of Hollywood’s best minds couldn’t figure out how to bring it to life.
Entertainment
Buy a $300 Delta gift card and get a free $20 Starbucks gift card
BUY A DELTA GIFT CARD FOR $300+ AND GET A FREE STARBUCKS GIFT CARD: Through May 11, buy a Delta gift card for $300 or more and get a free $20 Starbucks eGift card.
Credit: Delta / Starbucks
The price of flying these days is shocking. If you plan on traveling soon on a route served by Delta, it’s well worth checking out this deal to get something for free. It’ll help ease the pain of the ticket price.
Through May 11, purchase a Delta gift card worth $300 or more and get a free $20 Starbucks eGift card. It’s as simple as that. You can also qualify for the deal by buying multiple gift cards that total at least $300. The deal with apply automatically and you’ll receive a separate email containing the free Starbucks card.
Booking flights these days is not much fun. Prices are ahh…. abnormal, but Delta has eased the pain a bit thanks to this deal. The carrier is positioning this free Starbucks gift card deal as a good option for Mother’s Day, but realistically, it’s useful for anyone who plans to book with Delta soon.
Keep in mind the Delta gift card and Starbucks card will never expire. Delta mentions this offer is valid until May 11 at 11:59 p.m. ET or for the first 11,000 purchasers, whichever comes first. That means it might be smart to hop on this deal soon since there’s no way to know if it’ll last until May 11.
Mashable Deals
If you plan on flying soon or want to gift a special someone a Delta gift card worth $300 or more, snag this deal to get a free $20 Starbucks eGift card. It’s a win-win situation for those who plan to fly with Delta.
Entertainment
Snag a pair of Bose QuietComfort Ultra headphones for $50 off
SAVE $50: As of May 6, get the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) for $399 at Amazon, down from their usual price of $449. That’s a discount of 11%.
$399
at Amazon
$449
Save $50
If you want to experience your favorite music to the fullest, you need headphones that are up to the task. Bose can typically be counted on to provide that kind of quality, especially with its QuietComfort lineup. You can try its newest model for less right now for less thanks to this Amazon deal, which heavily discounts the cans so you don’t have to spend an arm and a leg on them.
As of May 6, get the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) for $399 at Amazon, down from their usual price of $449. That’s $50 off and a discount of 11%.
Though an incremental upgrade from the previous QuietComfort model, these have some new features you’ll want to try out. But mostly, these comfortable headphones are all about feeling great on your ears and sounding fantastic. They offer noise cancellation and spatialized audio so it sounds as though you’re right where the music is. The new Cinema Mode can help to spatialize and balance background and sound and sound effects when watching movies to help put you right into the film as well.
Beyond that they can be used to take calls with their built-in microphones. They’ll last a long time while you’re on the phone too, with 30 hours of play time when listening to songs, podcasts, or taking meetings.
Mashable Deals
Mashable Lead Shopping Reporter Bethany Allard took the headphones for a spin in her review and and called them a “well-rounded pair of headphones”, praising their blend of “comfort, noise cancellation, and sound”.
If you’re ready to pick up a new pair of headphones at a discount that’ll tick all the boxes for you, grab these before the discount disappears.
Entertainment
Score up to 64% off at EcoFlow and snag free solar panels with your purchase.
SAVE 64%: Between May 6 and May 17, you can score up to 64% off at EcoFlow and snag free solar panels with your purchase.
Get up to 64% off plus a free solar panel with purchase
I live in an apartment, so I don’t exactly have a “whole home” to back up. But if there’s one thing I hate, it’s losing power. There goes the AC, the internet, the food in the fridge — it’s a total nightmare. If you actually own a house and have been putting off buying a backup power system because it’s pricey, I have some good news.
The DJI Power 1000 Mini portable power station just launched — U.S. availability is pending
Right now, EcoFlow is running a Mother’s Day Sale through May 17 with discounts as high as 64%. They’re also throwing in free hardware to sweeten the deal: All single orders between $600 and $3,000 come with a free 45W solar panel, and orders over $3,000 come with two free 160W solar panels. If you’re looking for something more portable, their RAPID Power Banks are also up to 53% off right now.
Just keep an eye on the countdown clock — it’s for the Flash Sale items that have even better, limited-time price cuts. If you miss the flash window, the standard Mother’s Day and Home Improvement deals (including a $700 installation discount for larger systems) are still valid through mid-May.
Mashable Deals
Here are a few of the best deals I’ve spotted so far:
Buy a $300 Delta gift card and get a free $20 Starbucks gift card
Snag a pair of Bose QuietComfort Ultra headphones for $50 off
