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Stephen King Novella The Gingerbread Girl Getting Film Adaptation
An adaptation of Stephen King's novella The Gingerbread Girl is getting a film adaptation. This will mark the 30th Stephen King adaptation currently in development.
Based on a short story that premiered in an issue of Esquire in 2007, and later published in one of King's short story collections titled Just After Sunset, The Gingerbread Girl follows a woman who lives alone in New England, dealing with a recent loss. Having cut herself off from close friends and relatives, including her father and husband, she eventually discovers that her neighbor may be killing the young women that visit his home. The novella was optioned during the Cannes Film Festival by U.S. production and distribution company Brainstorm Media, and will be the second of King's stories to be picked up at Cannes, following Netflix's acquisition of In the Tall Grass, based on the novella written by King and his son Joe Hill.
According to Deadline, the adaptation of The Gingerbread Girl will reunite King with director Craig R. Baxley, who has directed numerous King stories, including Storm of the Century and Rose Red, which were written for television by King, and Kingdom Hospital, which King adapted from Lars von Trier's The Kingdom. The Gingerbread Girl will be the first of King's stories that Baxley will direct that is based on a previously published work. It will also reunite King with Mitchell Galin, who produced a number of King adaptations, including Thinner, The Night Flier, Creepshow 2, The Langoliers and Golden Years. He also produced The Stand and Pet Sematary, which are both in the process of being remade as a miniseries and feature, respectively.
Following the recent success of King adaptations like It, Gerald's Game, 1922, studios are gravitating towards his stories for adaptable material. In fact, CEO Mimi Steinbauer of Radiant Films International stated that King is easily one of the most "bankable" names in the current market. She explained that his work is the kind of material that "buyers are looking for in Cannes." Brainstorm Media president Meyer Shwarzstein agreed, adding that King's work - and The Gingerbread Girl story in particular -"will appeal to Stephen King fans everywhere."
While some of King's adaptations run the risk of being hit-or-miss (last year's TV series adaptation of his novella The Mist was panned by critics and cancelled after only a single season), others have proven to be massively successful (It broke box office records, earning the biggest horror movie opening ever). So, given that the general takeaway from most King adaptations are typically split, only time will tell on which end of the spectrum this one lands.
