There is plenty of funny in the long history of Stephen King movies, from the intentional campiness of Creepshow to the extreme silliness of Maximum Overdrive, but comedy is rarely a dominant force. When it comes to King, audiences are much more familiar with terror and drama. All that being said, Osgood Perkins' upcoming movie The Monkey looks like it will be breaking new ground when it is released early next year, as the first full trailer features plenty of horror but also a surprisingly weird attitude.
Perkins is best known for making the horror hit of summer 2024 – the serial killer thriller Longlegs – and the Stephen King short story on which the movie is based maintains a heavy, ominous tone throughout, but The Monkey adaptation appears to be taking on a totally different energy. There is a lot of death and blood, but it all comes with a wink that lets the audience know that there are fun times ahead.
How do you make death fun? Strange circumstance is definitely a wonderful tool (as wonderfully proven time and time again in the Final Destination franchise). In this 87-second spot, we witness some fantastic examples of this, including a sliced throat during a family dinner at at a teppanyaki restaurant and a falling air conditioner that electrifies a swimming pool. The titular toy appears to be quite rascally (what's up with all the fire?), and I can't wait to chortle at his antics on the big screen in 2025.
We don't get much in the way of story from this first full trailer for The Monkey (the first teaser arrived online back in August), but it has been reported that Theo James will play a pair of estranged twin brothers who reunite when a dangerous toy from their childhood – a wind-up monkey that causes people to die whenever activated – mysteriously reappears. As you can see in the footage, the horror comedy sports an outstanding supporting cast that includes Christian Convery (who plays the twins as children), She-Hulk star Tatiana Maslany, Elijah Wood, Colin O'Brien, Halloween Ends' Rohan Campbell, and Schitt Creek's Sarah Levy.
The Monkey is the first of multiple upcoming Stephen King projects set to arrive in 2025. Neon is set to release both The Monkey (on February 21, 2025) and Mike Flanagan's The Life Of Chuck (at some point during the summer), and Paramount Pictures has dated Edgar Wright's The Running Man for November 21, 2025. Francis Lawrence's adaptation of The Long Walk doesn't have a set release, but it has completed production, and there are two King TV shows expected to debut as well: the IT prequel series Welcome To Derry and MGM+'s The Institute.
