HBO Max, ‘Antlers’ Producer Developing Feature Based On Stephen King and Joe Hill’s ‘Throttle’ Novella
EXCLUSIVE: HBO Max is in the early development stage of a feature adaptation for the Throttle novella, which was co-written by Stephen King and his son Joe Hill, who is the NYT bestselling author of The Fireman and Strange Weather. Leigh Dana Jackson, a co-executive producer on the Netflix series Raising Dion, will write the screenplay, which will be produced by David S. Goyer and Keith Levine through their Phantom Four label.
Throttle follows a father and son led biker gang who get terrorized by a big rig truck on an isolated stretch of the American desert. The short story was first published in 2009 in an anthology titled He Is Legend and was followed by a 2012 comic book adaptation from IDW Publishing.
Hill’s second novel, Horns, was made into a feature film starring Daniel Radcliffe, and his third one, NOS4A2, was adapted into a TV series on AMC with the 2nd season coming in June. In addition, a TV version of his bestselling comic series Locke & Key, is currently on Netflix and was renewed for season 2. Hill is repped by Hotchkiss Daily & Associates.
Phantom Four is the production company behind the upcoming Keri Russell horror pic, Antlers (along with Guillermo Del Toro) as well as Sundance film The Night House. Both films will be released by Searchlight Pictures. They also have in their canon The Tomorrow War starring Chris Pratt at Paramount and Skydance, a Hellraiser reboot set at Spyglass, the action/thriller Rogue at STX, an Omen prequel at 20th Century Studios. Goyer, who serves as the showrunner the Apple/Skydance series, Foundation for Apple/Skydance, is repped by John LaViolette.
Jackson is currently adapting and executive producing The Spook Who Sat By The Door series for FX/Fox 21, with Lee Daniels and Marc Velez producing and Gerard McMurray attached to direct. He is repped by The Gotham Group and Michael Schenkman.
King has published over 50 books, many of which have been adapted for the screen, and is revered as one of the world’s most successful writers. He is repped by Paradigm.