In a horror mashup that frankly took way too long to happen, cinematic blood-splatter auteur Sam Raimi and Master of Terrors Stephen King are teaming up to bring King’s 1996 novel Desperation to Searchlight Pictures.
Raimi is set to produce alongside his longtime Ghost House Pictures partner Robert Tapert, while screenwriter Ryan Brennan takes on the daunting task of adapting King’s uniquely unhinged prose. Searchlight’s Taylor Friedman and Cameron Chidsey are overseeing the production, ensuring your next drive through the desert will be thoroughly anxiety-inducing.
Bad Cop, Worse Cop
You’re stranded on a barren stretch of Nevada highway. A local cop pulls you over. Great, Help has arrived! Except he’s six-foot-seven, heavily possessed by an ancient demonic entity named Tak, and violently uninterested in giving you a warning. Forget speeding tickets, these travelers are just trying to keep their organs inside their bodies.
The Directors: Hollywood’s Busiest Men
In-demand directing duo Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein are in talks to helm the nightmare, according to THR. Fresh off resurrecting a beloved franchise with their hit Final Destination: Bloodlines, the pair are officially running Hollywood’s genre beat.
Between Desperation, Amblin’s Long Lost, script duties for Chris Columbus’s Gremlins 3, an animated Venom film, and the mythic Metal Gear Solid movie, it’s safe to assume neither Lipovsky nor Stein has slept since 2024. It doesn’t stop there for the duo. They are also currently working on the sequel to their film Freaks.
The Story
Set along a desolate stretch of Nevada’s Highway 50, Desperation follows a group of unlucky travelers who are randomly pulled over, arrested, and imprisoned in the isolated mining town of Desperation by Collie Entragian—a towering, sadistic local sheriff.
The captives quickly realize the town is littered with corpses and that Entragian is possessed by Tak, an ancient, chaotic entity accidentally unsealed from a nearby mine. Because Tak’s immense power rapidly rots and destroys any human body it inhabits, the demon must constantly hop into new hosts. Led by a young boy named David Carver—who receives spiritual visions from God—the ragtag group of survivors must band together to destroy Tak before the ancient force slaughters them all.
Sam Raimi’s History of Terror
Raimi is behind the Evil Dead franchise, whose latest entry, Evil Dead: Burn, is coming home on Blu-ray this September. He has a long history of bloody, brutal films, making him the ideal choice to deliver a new version of Desperation. The brilliant filmmaker is also behind the upcoming reboot of Magic and is teaming up with Terrifier’s Damien Leone for Tortures of the Damned. Raimi’s most recent release was the film Send Help, which we gave a rave review.
The Never-Ending King Renaissance
This is not the first adaptation of the story. ABC released the made-for-TV movie back in 2006. Mick Garris (The Stand, Sleepwalkers) directed, with a teleplay written by Stephen King himself. The all-star cast included Ron Perlman as the towering, possessed Officer Collie Entragian. Tom Skerritt and Steven Weber also starred. While you wait for the new movie, watch Garris’ Desperation now. It’s available on Fandango at Home and on Prime Video. Watch the trailer below for a taste of the terror to come.
This new project arrives right in the thick of Hollywood’s endless Stephen King fever dream. Joining recent high-profile adaptations like It: Welcome to Derry, The Long Walk, and The Running Man, Desperation proves studio executives still treat King’s bibliography like an endless buffet of trauma. And it’s just the tip of the Stephen King universe. The list continues to grow with the upcoming series adaptation of “Carrie,” from Mike Flanagan, whose trailer just dropped, and Ben Yung’s Mr. Yummy.
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