The writing of Stephen King is often sought after by Film producers with millions to bid and a keen eye for brilliant “What if...?” ideas that would translate wonderfully onto the big screen, as is that of his footsteps-following son Joe Hill, who’s also had films and television adapted from his work, so as one might imagine, the novella the pair of them wrote together called “Throttle” has been snatched up for a film adaptation.
‘Throttle’ is a biker story published in 2009
The novella, “Throttle,” was first published back in 2009 in an anthology of horror short stories from a handful of the genre’s finest writers that was created in honour of celebrated author Richard Matheson of “I Am Legend” fame which was for some reason limited to a certain number of printed copies.
King and Hill’s story for “Throttle” is inspired by Matheson’s own story “Duel,” which centres on a terrified driver being stalked by a tanker truck, and was adapted into a movie itself back in the 1970s that was the feature-length directorial debut of a one Mr. Steven Spielberg, launching perhaps the greatest filmmaking career of all time and earning him the opportunity to make “Jaws,” so yeah, it’s pretty important stuff.
“Throttle” is set in the dusty Nevada desert, on a long, barren road named Route 6. Basically, it’s about a deal between a biker gang called The Tribe (including a kid named Race and his dad, Vince) and some other bad SOBs that goes south, and the bad SOBs are hunting them down along Route 6 so they’re on the run, but then pretty soon another evil comes along to chase them too, and this one’s far scarier and far more ruthless.
‘Army of One’ producer has the rights
The producer who’s nabbed the rights to “Throttle” is Emile Gladstone, whose only producing credit to his name thus far is “Army of One,” last year’s batsh*t comedy about Nicolas Cage hunting down Osama bin Laden from the director of “Borat.” He’s hired John Scott 3 (literally, the number 3 is in his pen name), the writer of Arnie-starring zombie drama “Maggie,” to provide the script.
Besides “Throttle,” King has a TV series in the works with JJ Abrams, as well as the first adaptation of “The Dark Tower” due in July and the latest version of “It” coming out in September, having just smashed online traffic records with its chilling trailer, as well as television shows adapted from “The Mist” and his “Mr. Mercedes” trilogy that are about to begin production, and Hill has just seen his book turned into “Horns” (aka “that weird film where Daniel Radcliffe is the Devil or something), and has Fox developing an adaptation of his “The Fireman,” and Universal has already bought the film rights to his novel “Snapshot 1988,” which hasn’t even been published yet.
