After years of backlogs and delays, Warner Bros. and New Line are finally preparing to release Salem’s Lot, the long-awaited adaptation of Stephen King’s classic 1975 novel. The horror film is slated to begin streaming on Max in October, and ahead of its release, Total Film has dropped a new image of Salem’s Lot that features the main character, Ben Mears, played by Lewis Pullman, as he returns to his childhood hometown to discover something amiss.
The image shows off Pullman’s Mears on a dark, apparently deserted street. He is staring behind the camera at something in the distance – though what he is looking at remains to be seen. As with the novel, Salem’s Lot will follow Mears as he returns to his childhood home of Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine, trying to come up with inspiration for a new book. Upon his return, though, he discovers that the town is being besieged by a deadly vampire. Mears must then team with a variety of characters, including love interest Susan Norton (Makenzie Leigh), to try and discover the truth.
“How [director Gary Dauberman] approached it was almost like, this is not a horror movie. This is a movie about a small town in America where something horrific happens,” Pullman said of the film. “He was trying to also rekindle the fire of mystique about vampires. They’ve shifted in many different ways over the last couple of decades in terms of pop culture.”
‘Salem’s Lot’ Will Finally See the Light of Day
It has been a long time coming to the screen for Salem’s Lot; though a 1979 miniseries led to a theatrical sequel, the upcoming project will be the first feature film to tell the story. Development on the film was first announced in 2019, before production was pushed back to 2021 for a 2022 release. However, it eventually got pushed back again to a 2023 release, before being delayed a third time as a result of the 2023 Hollywood strikes. Amid reports of a streaming release, Warner Bros. finally confirmed that Salem’s Lot would drop on Max in October 2024, a far cry from the original plan to releae the film theatrically.
Dauberman, a horror mainstay who previously wrote the scripts for the King adaptations It and It Chapter Two, directed Salem’s Lot from a self-adapted screenplay and also serves as an executive producer. The film comes from Warners and New Line and is produced by James Wan and Michael Lee for their Atomic Monster banner, Roy Lee for Vertigo Entertainment, and Mark Wolper for the Mark Wolper Organization.
Salem’s Lot will be released on Max in October. Stay tuned to Collider for new on other King adaptations, including the upcoming It prequel series Welcome to Derry.