Stephen King Adaptation ‘The Monkey’, Starring Theo James, Pre-Sells To Neon For U.S. After Promo Sparks Buyer Tug-Of-War — Cannes Market

EXCLUSIVE: Following a multi-buyer tug of war, horror movie The Monkey, the adaptation of the Stephen King short story, is heading to Neon for domestic here at the Cannes market.

Theo James (The White Lotus) stars in the movie with Tatiana Maslany (She–Hulk: Attorney at Law), Elijah Wood (The Lord Of The Rings), Christian Convery (Sweet Tooth), Colin O’Brien (Wonka), Rohan Campbell (The Hardy Boys) and Sarah Levy (Schitt’s Creek). Osgood Perkins (Longlegs) directs and adapted the King story.

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Multiple U.S. distributors came in hot for the project after its newest promo on the Croisette and we hear a deal settled in the high seven figures.

As we previously reported, the team behind the movie includes genre supremo James Wan, creator of the The Conjuring Universe and co-creator of the Saw and Insidious franchises. Filming wrapped this spring and Neon is planning a theatrical release in 2025.

In The Monkey, when twin brothers Hal and Bill discover their father’s old monkey toy in the attic, a series of gruesome deaths starts occurring all around them. The brothers decide to throw the monkey away and move on with their lives, growing apart over the years. But when the mysterious deaths begin again, the brothers must reunite to find a way to destroy the monkey for good before it takes the lives of everyone close to them. Theo James plays the twins in later years. Convery plays the younger twins.

Wan and Michael Clear (M3GAN) produce for Atomic Monster; Dave Caplan (Babylon) for C2 Motion Picture Group; Brian Kavanaugh-Jones (Insidious) for Range Select; and Chris Ferguson (Child’s Play) for Odd Fellows. Exec producers are Range’s Fred Berger, Stars Collective’s Peter Luo and Nancy Xu, and John Friedberg for Black Bear, who is also representing the international sales rights. C2 financed the film.

Black Bear initially launched sales on the movie last Cannes where we it sold well internationally. The deal for Monkey was negotiated by CFO Ryan Friscia, SVP of Business and Legal Affairs Emily Thomas and VP of Acquisitions and Production Jason Wald for Neon with CAA Media Finance, UTA Independent Film Group and Range Select on behalf of the filmmakers.

The deal re-teams Neon with director Perkins. The duo have Nicolas Cage starrer Longlegs releasing this summer and are in the Cannes market with Perkins’ upcoming thriller Keeper. Neon has also notably acquired the last four Palme d’Or winners so eyes are on Tom Quinn’s outfit this week and next to see which movies it goes for in the Competition or whether their title Anora can make it five in a row.

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