Steven Spielberg might be finally be adapting this Stephen King classic

Is there a Steve in the entertainment world more powerful than King or Spielberg? Truly these men are the head Arts Steves. There’s 12 Years A Slave director Steve McQueen and skull-breaking badass Stone Cold Steve Austin battling it out for third place, but the scary man with the long philtrum and the friendly man with the films about dads are absolutely the top Steves.

The world was introduced to them on the same day, as well. Sugarland Express, Steven Spielberg’s theatrical debut, and Carrie, Stephen King’s first novel, both came out on April 5th 1974. Steve synchronicity. Stevonicity. April 5th should henceforth be known as Steventide.

Yet somehow these two striding behemoths (beSteveoths?) have never worked together properly. UnbeSteveable!

There have been a lot of near-Steve-misses - King was asked to work on Poltergeist, but never got the letter because he was on a ship at the time. Twenty or so years ago, they spoke about doing a film about an old Victorian house, which Spielberg bailed on and King eventually turned into a TV project. Spielberg later exec-produced the TV version of King’s Under The Dome, and Spielberg’s Ready Player One has an extended sequence inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of King’s The Shining. 

But now, at long last, they might be on the verge of a proper collaboration, one 35 years in the making, which is quite an aStevement. Spielberg initially acquired the rights to The Talisman, King’s collaboration with British author Peter Straub, in 1982 (two years before the book even came out), and it might finally be happening.

“I feel that in the very near future, that’s going to be our richest collaboration” Spielberg told Entertainment Weekly. 

“Universal bought the book for me, so it wasn’t optioned. It was an outright sale of the book. I’ve owned the book since ’82, and I’m hoping to get this movie made in the next couple of years. I’m not committing to the project as a director, I’m just saying that it’s something that I’ve wanted to see come to theaters for the last 35 years.”

The Talisman is a whopper of a book - the paperback is 944 pages, which is inconSteveably long. Will they have to go down the It route of multiple films? Possibly. It’s got werewolves, complex timelines interweaving (interSteveing) between alternate universes, plus mum issues, and loosely connects with the Dark Tower series.

Either way, these two guys working together sounds like a match made in Steaven. 

(Images: Getty/Trish Capini)