Stephen King's film adaptations have been getting a lot of remake treatments within the last decade from 2013’s Carrie to 2019’s Pet Sematary. But there are plenty of his previous film adaptations that are in serious need of remakes such as Christine about a homicidal car. Luckily, your wish has been granted by Blumhouse Productions who's in charge of remaking Christine. And the 1983 film’s director John Carpenter has something to say about that.
Christine is considered one of the better Stephen King movies that has received a book-to-film treatment. It basically puts Disney’s Volkswagen Beetle Herbie to shame as Christine is a 1958 Plymouth Fury whose jealous, possessive personality is out for the kill. 40 years after John Carpenter’s spin on the horror novel, it looks like it’s time for today’s audiences to be introduced to the bloodthirsty vehicle. According to GamesRadar, Total Film mentioned to John Carpenter that Heroes writer Byran Fuller would be making his directorial debut remaking Christine, and here was his reaction.
Oh boy. Well, good luck to him. It will probably be better.
John Carpenter could probably relate to what Bryan Fuller could be going through making a name for himself as a director with the same movie. As he explained to Total Film, the 1983 horror film was just a job to him as adapting Stephen King’s Christine was not what he initially saw himself doing. During the filming of The Thing, the Halloween director was asked to direct a different adaptation from “The King of Horror”: Firestarter. But after The Thing turned out to be a box office failure, he was replaced by Mark L. Lester. When reading the source material of Christine, Carpenter didn’t feel like King’s story was very scary but needed a project to do for the time being.
While Christine wasn’t a passion project for John Carpenter, Bryan Fuller has been having a lot of fun making the upcoming Stephen King movie. When it was announced two years ago about a Christine remake, the Pushing Daisies writer spoke to SyFy that his script is a faithful adaptation of King’s book and that it was an amusing challenge to fit an over-500-page book into a 100-page script. It appears that Fuller wants to unravel a lot of layers of King’s book that the Carpenter movie didn’t do. The Fog director did take a lot of creative liberties towards his project like having the car be haunted from the start compared to the book having the car being the ghost of its former owner. Plus, several deaths in the movie were changed to make them look more visually appealing on the screen.
As for when we’ll get to see Bryan Fuller’s Christine remake, the release date is up in the air right now. The last update we got was from two years ago when the television writer said fans need to be patient as they’re still a long way from shooting. On the other hand, there’s still a way for Stephen King fans to see the John Carpenter classic as it’s returning to the big screen next month. Three screenings will be shown nationwide with a special introduction from none other than John Carpenter before the movie starts. Whether you’ve read Stephen King’s novel or you’re a horror film fan, you can see for yourself what you think about the cult classic.
It looks like John Carpenter is showing his support for Bryan Fuller in his directorial endeavor of Christine. While the release date of the upcoming horror film is still unknown, make sure to see the re-release of John Carpenter’s classic in theaters on September 13th.
