The upcoming film from The Haunting of Hill House, Hush, and Oculus director Mike Flanagan has an official release date, Bloody Disgusting reports. The movie, titled The Life of Chuck, is an adaptation of Stephen King’s novella of the same name, published in his 2020 collection If It Bleeds, and it will hit theaters via NEON on May 30th, 2025.
The film made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2024, where it won the prestigious people’s choice award. According to TIFF’s Jane Schoettle, the plot is as follows:
With ‘
The Life of Chuck
,’ Mike Flanagan takes a detour from the macabre to explore one of Stephen King’s alternate sensibilities in an adaptation that carries the spirit of his most optimistic work…‘The Life of Chuck’
starts grand and ends intimate, like a setting sun. It’s a ‘
Stand By Me’
for the multiple lives within each of us, pulled between our dreams and down-to-earth pragmatism.
The film features an incredibly stacked cast, including Tom Hiddleston (Crimson Peak), Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave), Karen Gillan (Oculus), Jacob Tremblay (Doctor Sleep), Mark Hamill (Star Wars), Matthew Lillard (Scream), Heather Langenkamp (A Nightmare on Elm Street), Mia Sara (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), Harvey Guillen (What We Do in the Shadows), David Dastmalchian (Late Night with the Devil), and Kate Siegel (The Haunting of Hill House, also Flanagan’s wife and frequent collaborator).
Flanagan is no stranger to the world of King, having previously adapted Gerald’s Game for Netflix and Doctor Sleep, the sequel to The Shining, for Warner Bros. Concerning the latter, the director received praise for successfully marrying Stephen King’s text with Stanley Kubrick’s visuals (King famously detests Kubrick’s film). He’s also been tapped to shepherd a new series based on King’s first novel, Carrie, and finally do justice to the mighty Dark Tower novels.
A Departure For Both King and Flanagan
Fans, of course, know King as the Master of Horror, but The Life of Chuck is not a horror tale, though it does deal with some heavy subject matter. With a narrative told in reverse, the film grapples with the end of the world as it relates to Chuck Krantz (Hiddleston), a mild-mannered and seemingly insignificant accountant. It’s been described as a feel-good, even joyful story, one that is as much a departure for Flanagan as it is for King.
Related
The Life of Chuck Review: Mike Flanagan’s Beautiful Stephen King Adaptation [TIFF 2024]
Boasting an all-star cast ranging from Tom Hiddleston, Karen Gillan, and Mark Hamill, Flanagan illustrates life’s fragility with his great new film.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Flanagan – who independently financed the picture – revealed that King himself was skeptical about the adaptation at first. “His initial responses to me were a little like, ‘Oh, okay. Yeah. If you think that’s a movie… He did say several times that he thought it would be a challenge to get it supported through traditional means.” After seeing the finished product, King no longer had any doubts, calling the film “a happiness factory.”
Fans will have to wait until spring of next year to feel the joy.
A life-affirming, genre-bending story based on Stephen King’s novella about three chapters in the life of an ordinary man named Charles Krantz.
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