Coming in 2023, The Boogeyman is a Stephen King adaptation that will see one of the author’s earliest stories radically altered for the big screen — here are the latest The Boogeyman movie updates. Iconic horror author Stephen King’s back catalog is currently having a pretty impressive revival. However, despite how many directors are re-imagining existing King adaptations, there are still some brave souls who are taking on old King stories for the first time. A feature-length adaptation of King's short story The Boogeyman is set to arrive in theaters in June of 2023.
This has led some to wonder what the original story is about, and how will the movie change its plot. Like many of King’s short stories (including Night Shift’s original “Children of the Corn”), The Boogeyman is a sparse tale without much plot. However, this has not deterred one of the horror genre’s rising stars, director Rob Savage, from signing on to expand the story with some Sixth Sense-influenced flair. By the sounds of The Boogeyman’s earliest synopsis, the movie will change a lot of the original story while still holding onto the tale’s main theme and expanding on its scariest elements. Here are the latest The Boogeyman movie updates.
The Latest The Boogeyman News
The latest The Boogeyman movie updates see an exciting admission from director Rob Savage, who claims that it's the "scariest" movie he's ever made. This is quite the feat, considering he was responsible for the 2020 supernatural horror film Host. In an interview with Empire Magazine, Savage opened up about the upcoming horror movie and how it holds up against other Stephen King adaptations. In addition to citing The Boogeyman as the scariest film he's ever made, he also voiced anxieties about his movie having the same reputation as Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, in that King famously hated this adaptation the most. His full comment can be viewed below.
I was worried that sometimes you can end up in the King graveyard without even being in the King graveyard. His opinions on The Shining are famously known. You've got to try and make a classic movie. And I think this is the scariest movie I've ever made. I think this is scarier than Host.
Other The Boogeyman movie updates announce that a trailer has finally dropped for the Stephen King story. The trailer gives audiences a first glimpse of sisters Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) and Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair) as the latter becomes more and more frightened by the mysterious presence haunting their home. Chris Messina's Will is also introduced as the much-needed skeptic of the family, blissfully unaware of the paranormal events occurring within his home. All in all, the trailer showcases the kind of scares that audiences are in for with The Boogeyman's insulated story.
The Boogeyman Is Confirmed
The Boogeyman movie updates announced that the film was confirmed in 2021, and now has an official cast, trailer, and release date. However, this wasn't always the case. Initially, The Boogeyman was commissioned in 2018 with A Quiet Place duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods set to develop a screenplay. Shawn Levy, Dan Levine, and Dan Cohen were slated to produce the movie, and 20th Century Fox was planning to distribute. However, Disney's acquisition of Fox in 2019 saw the film canceled. It was revived in 2021, with Rob Savage at the director's helm, and a screenplay based on Beck and Woods' original draft was coined by Mark Heyman.
The Boogeyman Release Date
While initial The Boogeyman movie updates stated that the film would release via Hulu, The Boogeyman will be given a theatrical debut, and will premiere in theaters on June 2nd, 2023. Thanks to positive test screenings, The Boogeyman was able to forgo a streaming-only release, so audiences can experience the terror of King's story on the big screen. It's unknown when The Boogeyman will hit streaming services for those that can't make it to the theater, but presumably, the film will eventually land on Hulu since that was its first prescribed home.
The Boogeyman Cast
One of the best The Boogeyman movie updates was that the film would include an absolutely stellar cast. The Boogeyman cast will see Chris Messina (Argo) as Will, a recent widower, and father to two girls. Rising star Sophie Thatcher (Yellowjackets, The Book of Boba Fett) plays Sadie, the somewhat skeptical older sister. Child actress Vivien Lyra Blair (Obi-Wan Kenobi) takes on the role of youngest daughter Sawyer. David Dastmalchian (The Suicide Squad) plays Will's patient Lester, and Marin Ireland (The Umbrella Academy) stars as Rita. LisaGay Hamilton (The Sum of All Fears) plays Dr. Weller, and Madison Hu (Voyagers) has been cast in an undisclosed role.
The Boogeyman Story
While The Boogeyman movie updates confirm that the story of the film is different than that of King's, its still an intriguing premise. The Boogeyman story sees sisters Sadie and Sawyer left in the lurch by their therapist father Will after the death of their mother. One day, one of Will's patients, Lester, shows up at their door, clearly desperate and afraid, and begs for the family's help. He unwittingly brings with him a horrifying entity that seeks to feed on the family's greatest tragedy and terrorize their home.
First anthologized in Night Shift, King's The Boogeyman is an unsettling story of an unsympathetic protagonist telling a psychiatrist about the titular monster’s pursuit of him throughout his childhood and into adult life. Eventually, the ending reveals there’s a nasty surprise in store for the antihero. A lot like Jerusalem’s Lot, the prequel to vampire horror Salem’s Lot featured in the same anthology, The Boogeyman leaves most of its horrors to the imagination.
As his cynical psychiatrist listens, disinterested, the narrator describes the horrific unsolved murders of his children, all of whom were found mysteriously killed after crying out about the boogeyman. Eventually, the protagonist heads out of the office, only to discover that his psychiatrist himself is the eponymous threat, coming to finally put the troubled main character out of his misery.
The Boogeyman Trailer
Thankfully, The Boogeyman movie updates do include a trailer for the upcoming horror movie. The Boogeyman trailer starts out with Sadie and Sawyer visiting Dr. Weller, who tries to tell the pair that when scary things in life happen the mind tends to fill in the blanks. The rest of the footage intercuts chilling scenes in the family's home, underscored by Sadie's attempts to convince Sawyer that it's all in her head. Will and Lester are also seen toward the end of The Boogeyman trailer, though Will and Sawyer's fates come into question in the final harrowing scene.
Why The Boogeyman Needs To Change The Original Story
For much of its brief telling, King’s original story The Boogeyman is far too sad to be a fun horror read. Although it is full of tension and creepy details, the bulk of the tale is a man recounting the deaths of his small children, and makes for deeply depressing reading as a result. It is entirely possible that Savage’s adaptation will pull no punches and kill off the hero’s children. However, it is a lot more likely that, much like the Lovecraftian King adaptation From A Buick 8, the movie will tone down the un-filmable elements and make the story more palatable.
1989’s original Pet Sematary is perhaps the most famous cinematic attempt to tap into King’s talent for making subjects as sad as the death of a child scary. That underrated Mary Lambert-directed effort used pitch-black comedy and an offbeat tone to make the bleak source material work for the movie. By dialing back the focus on the unutterable tragedy, The Boogeyman has the potential to be a cult classic. This will mean changing a lot of details from the original Stephen King story while keeping the tone intact, but if anyone is up to that challenge, The Boogeyman director Rob Savage should be the perfect candidate.
