Bryan Fuller's Christine 'Will Be Horny As Hell'
It was announced last June that "Hannibal" and "Pushing Daisies" mastermind Bryan Fuller was attempting a new adaptation of John Carpenter's "Christine" and Stephen King fans have been waiting for an update ever since. Well, now we've got a little morsel or two.
Apologies in advance for the blatant self-promotion, but when I'm not writing up nerdy things for /Film I co-host a podcast called "The Kingcast" alongside Mr. Scott Wampler. The format of the show is we bring in a celebrity guest to discuss a specific King title of their choosing and then dive into the story and any adaptation that has come along. We had Bryan Fuller on the show at the end of last year to talk about his take on "Christine," which ended up leading to him tackling a remake of the title.
Today we dropped a new episode with Fuller with a focus on a book written by King and fellow author Peter Straub called "The Talisman," a mid-'80s novel that follows a young boy as he travels across the country on a quest to save his dying mother. But we couldn't help but pester him for an update on "Christine," and what we got was pure Bryan Fuller.
The Overlook On Wheels
At this very moment, Fuller's script is in Stephen King's hands, waiting for the author's feedback. But Fuller is pretty confident King will approve because he claims his take is a more pure adaptation of the novel and less of a remake of Carpenter's film.
"This is much more beholden to the concept of 'The Overlook on wheels,' or the vampiric relationship between the car and Arnie," Fuller told us. He pointed out that the Carpenter original was a favorite of his but that it left out a lot of stuff from the book, so he's using his chance at bat to bring that stuff in, including the killer car's previous owner, Roland LeBay, who did not appear in Carpenter's film.
LeBay is a rotten soul of a person but serves as something of a roadmap of what will happen to the main character, a nerdy guy named Arnie. Obsession with the car changes his personality and the story takes on kind of a possession air.
It's also worth noting that the original novel is extremely sexual, which is a theme that Fuller is not only aware of but integrating into his version.
'Our Version of Christine Will Be Horny As Hell'
That's Fuller's exact quote, that this version will be horny as hell, and if you've ever seen Fuller's work in "Hannibal" you know that the man isn't afraid to mix his horror with eroticism. At the heart of King's novel is a series of love triangles. Nerdy Arnie and his jock best friend, Dennis, and the car become one triangle, and all that is further complicated when Arnie gets a girlfriend, Leigh, who has eyes for Dennis as well.
Arnie's obsession with this quasi-haunted evil car becomes its own toxic relationship that sours everything else around him, and that's an angle Fuller really wants to lean heavily into.
Other tiny tidbits he dropped include the setting, which will be late 1978 into early 1979, just like the book. He also made an effort to modernize Leigh into a more three-dimensional character since in both the book and the Carpenter film she's just kind of there as a placeholder.
You can listen to the full Kingcast episode here (beware of "Talisman" spoilers if you've never read that book, but you totally should read it because Steven Spielberg and The Duffer Bros are developing a "Talisman" mini-series for Netflix so you'll want to be all prepped and ready to go when that finally happens). It's a lot of fun and even concludes with a lengthy discussion about what it's like to trip out on mushrooms with Bryan Fuller. That's the level of discourse we bring to the table with our podcast.
"Christine" is being developed by Fuller alongside producer Vincenzo Natali for Sony Pictures and Blumhouse.