‘New Mutants’ Director Josh Boone to Adapt Stephen King’s ‘The Talisman’

The Dark Tower wasn’t just a huge disappointment at the box office; it was also a major bummer for the longtime Stephen King fans who had waited years to see the author’s fantasy epic come to life. It may be many more years before anyone attempts to adapt it again, but in the meantime, it looks like New Mutants director and King mega-fan Josh Boone is working on giving us the next best thing.

Per Variety, Amblin Entertainment has tapped Boone to write the screenplay for an adaptation of The Talisman, the horror-fantasy novel co-authored by Stephen King and Peter Straub. Like almost all of King’s works, the novel, which centers on a boy named Jack who travels to a parallel world known as the Territories in order to save his dying mother, has connections to The Dark Tower. Due to rights issues, Boone’s film won’t be able to make those connections overt, but The Talisman is very much in the same wheelhouse as King’s magnum opus. As of now, Boone is only attached to write the screenplay for The Talisman, but there is a possibility for him to direct.

King and Straub published a sequel to The Talisman in 2001; titled Black House, the novel takes place several years later and follows Jack as an adult. Now working for the LAPD, Jack investigates a series of grisly murders that lead him back to the Territories. A few years ago, King revealed that he’s collaborating with Straub on a third book in the series — so there’s definitely franchise potential for The Talisman, should Boone’s film make it to the big screen.

It’s not the first Stephen King project Boone has been involved with: His sprawling adaptation of The Stand stalled out at Warner Bros.; he was also working on adaptations of Revival and Lisey’s Story.

Boone, who scored a breakout with The Fault in Our Stars, is currently working on Fox’s X-Men spinoff, New Mutants. The first trailer for that film arrives tomorrow, October 13.