Movies

Guillermo Del Toro Will Murder You To Adapt Stephen King's 'Pet Sematary'

del toro pet sematary
By Jacob Hall

Guillermo del Toro likes to talk and if you've ever seen him in an interview or a Q&A, you understand why everyone always shuts up and listens. He's smart, he's hilarious, and he's a natural raconteur. He has great taste and won't hesitate to talk about superheroes, monsters, theme park attractions, ghost stories, and 19th century romantic literature. When he opens his mouth, he tends to say exciting things. Sometimes, this means he spitballs movie ideas in public and all we can do is sit back and watch as he picks and chooses which of his 87 potential projects he'll make next.

Now, he's started teasing us about wanting to make a movie adaptation of Stephen King's Pet Sematary. The chances of this happening are slim to none, but the mere concept now lingers in the air. Of course the guy behind The Devil's Backbone and Crimson Peak would make a great Pet Sematary.

Find more on the Guillermo del Toro Pet Sematary chatter after the jump.

Del Toro's still-young Twitter feed has essentially become an ongoing list of the director's favorite things. Through the power of social media, he has been introducing his favorite books, movies and artists to the masses. If you're not following him, you are missing out. This morning, he brought up King's Pet Sematary, saying that he'd end your poor, pitiful life to bring the novel to the big screen:

Look, Mr. del Toro, if a handful of blood sacrifices is what it takes to help you get movies made, just let us know. Surely there are some people willing to lay down their lives for the cause.

Published in 1983, Pet Sematary is one of King's best and most frightening novels, following a family whose new house is very close to an ancient burial ground where things don't stay dead. King famously found the subject matter of the book so upsetting that he didn't publish it until he needed a quick escape from a contract. It was previously made into a pretty good movie in 1989, but it's still awaiting an adaptation that truly captures the misery, tragedy, and horror of the source material.

And del Toro is the kind of visionary who could make that happen. But let's be honest with ourselves here: del Toro saying he wants to make something means nothing. This guy wants to make everything. He's working on a mysterious indie project shooting next year. He's prepping Silver, a Mexican wrestler versus vampire movie that will be shot in black-and-white. He claims Pacific Rim 2 is still happening. He's apparently still writing that new Haunted Mansion movie for Disney. He still occasionally brings up Hellboy 3 and At the Mountains of Madness, even though both of those are long-shots at this point. He's not gonna find time for Pet Sematary.

However, a new Pet Sematary movie is in the works...it's just been two years since Juan Carlos Fresnadillo signed on to direct and we haven't heard anything since. If this project is stalled, Paramount could do far worse than take a meeting with del Toro. After all, we like to think we live in one of the better timelines where del Toro is allowed to make a Stephen King movie.

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