Tom Holland Gives an Update on Stephen King’s The Ten O’clock People

It was recently announced that Fright Night and Child's Play director Tom Holland will adapt and direct Stephen King's short story The Ten O'clock People. This will be his third Stephen King adaptation, having previously directed The Langoliers and Thinner.

Our friend Hans-Ake Lilja over at Lilja's Library recently had a chance to interview Tom Holland and learned a bit more about the upcoming project:

Screenplay and Start Date: At this point Tom is writing the screenplay for The Ten O’Clock People and the plan is to start shooting on August 29. Tom admits to it being a close call when I ask him if that isn’t a very tight schedule for him to do the screenplay. He is desperately working to get it done in time and so far it looks good.

Stephen King Cameo: I asked Tom that if King agrees to participate in the movie, would Tom prefer King to have a bigger part in the movie or just a cameo. Tom says he’d prefer just a cameo because if King had a bigger part everyone would go “Oh, that’s Stephen King” and that pulls them out of the movie.

We've included the original press release below. You can read the full interview, which includes Tom Holland talking about Thinner and The Langoliers over at Lilja's Library.

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Press Release: "Veteran Director Tom Holland (“Fright Night,” “Child’s Play”) has signed on to adapt and direct the feature film “The Ten O’clock People,” a short story by Stephen King. Holland and King have previously collaborated on the popular thrillers “The Langoliers” and“Thinner.” After an extended hiatus, Holland returned to directing in 2007 as a featured director in the acclaimed “Masters of Horror” series for Showtime.Currently he is writing and directing “Twisted Tales,” a series of shorts for FearNet. “The Ten O’clock People” will be his highly anticipated and first theatrical release since“Thinner.”

King’s “The Ten O’clock People” was a short story published in 1993 as part of his “Nightmares and Dreamscapes” collection and was notable for being set in Boston, Massachusetts as opposed to his familiar Maine locale. The story follows Brandon Pearson, who in trying to kick his smoking habit uncovers a frightening aspect of reality, he plans to extinguish through extreme measures.

Inspired by his own struggle with kicking the habit, “ [this story] was Stephen trying to deal with his cigarette jones and the fairly new no-smoking laws back in the 90’s. This film will be a modernization of the original short story, a paranoid suspense piece,” commented Holland.

“With Ron Howard’s ‘The Dark Tower’ adaptation and remakes of‘Carrie’ and ‘The Stand’ on the horizon, 2013 is shaping up to be the year of King.” Said Producers Nathaniel Kramer and E.J. Meyers, “We’re excited to be contributing to it.”

“The Ten O’clock People” will begin filming this summer and is produced by Making Ten O’clock Productions and Holland’s Dead Rabbit Films."