The Director of ‘Longlegs’ Made a Stephen King Movie

Osgood Perkins, James Wan, and Stephen King are partnering on a single film. Would a “dream team” of horror greats technically be considered a nightmare team?

Whatever you want to call them, that’s the trio coming together for The Monkey. The film is based on one of Stephen King’s most famous short stories, which was originally published in 1980 and then served as the inspiration for the cover art on King’s 1985 short story collection Skeleton Crew.

The film adaptation is written for the screen and directed by Osgood Perkins, who is currently riding high thanks to his surprise horror blockbuster Longlegs. And the movie is produced by Saw and Insidious and The Conjuring and Malignant filmmaker James Wan. (Damn, that guy has directed a lot of influential horror movies.)

The first teaser for the film is below. That’s Theo James in the main (non-drumming-monkey-toy) role.

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Neon didn’t provide an official synopsis for the film, but the King story is about a pair of brothers who find one of those old-fashioned cymbal-crashing monkey toys in the attic of a family member’s house. It turns out that this monkey has a long history in the brothers’ family going back generations — and seems to be cursed so that any time it bangs its cymbals together, someone dies.

Of course, that was a short story and this is a feature film, so the final movie may deviate from the source material. (Based on the teaser, it seems like the toy has a drum in the film rather than a pair of cymbals, so there’s one change right there.)

Perkins’ Longlegs, also released like The Monkey by Neon, has become one of the biggest hits of the summer movie season. The film has already grossed more than $90 million worldwide, making it the top-grossing film in Neon’s history. If The Monkey performs similarly well, Perkins’ profile in Hollywood would skyrocket – if it hasn’t already.

The Monkey is scheduled to open in theaters on February 21, 2025.