The Stephen King Film That Two Late Horror Legends Couldn’t Adapt

Sometimes, when it comes to adapting Stephen King’s novels for film or television, unmade is better.

There have been plenty of triumphs and many wipeouts, but the ones that sting the most tend to be the adaptations that bring a paucity of vision to his most expansive works. There have been two miniseries made out of King’s post-apocalyptic masterpiece “The Stand,” but they fell well short due to either budget constraints and/or simple timidity. If you’re going to take on a book that’s so celebrated and massive, why start from a place where you know you’ll be cutting corners? It’s encouraging to know that a major filmmaker like James Wan, who can secure a substantial budget due to his blockbuster success with franchises like “The Conjuring” and “The Fast and the Furious,” wants to take a crack at “The Stand,” but the material is so tainted at this point by two high-profile misfires that I’d prefer he adapt Robert R. McCammon’s narratively similar (and, to my mind, superior) “Swan Song.”

And then there’s “The Dark Tower,” King’s eight-novel saga that daunted filmmakers for decades until poor Nikolaj Arcel got left holding the hot potato of a wretched Akiva Goldsman adaptation that played like a proof-of-concept reel for a film no studio in its right mind would ever finance. Maybe someone else will try their luck at “The Dark Tower” again, but I would implore King fans to accept that the movie in their head will never be matched.

One novel that’s been bafflingly difficult to realize as a film is “From a Buick 8.” It’s a companion piece of sorts to “Christine,” and clocks in at a tight-for-King 468 pages. Unfortunately, despite attracting the attention of two bonafide horror legends, it’s still unproduced. What gives?

Published in 2002, “From a Buick 8” tells the eerily melancholy tale of Pennsylvania state policemen who’ve been watching over a Buick Roadmaster that’s possessed with inexplicable supernatural powers. It’s a novel that’s very much in love with the transporting nature of oral storytelling, which may be why it’s flummoxed masters of the visual medium.

George A. Romero, a friend and frequent collaborator of King’s, was the first to give “From a Buick 8” a go. He was attached to a script written by actor Johnathon Schaech (“That Thing You Do”) and Richard Chizmar, which Schaech described to Bloody Disgusting in 2009 as “more of a horror film than the novel.” “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” maestro Tobe Hooper took over for Romero in 2007, but he, too, was unable to get it out of the garage.

Since then, “The Boy” and “Orphan: First Kill” director William Brent Bell and “Stake Land” auteur Jim Mickle have gone under the hood on “From a Buick 8,” but they couldn’t get that engine jump-started either. But don’t fret! Bell told Fangoria in 2024 that the novel is now being developed as a miniseries by none other than James Wan. Bell has expressed interest in directing an episode for Wan if this iteration ever goes before cameras, so there’s hope yet for “From a Buick 8.”