Director Mike Flanagan’s new Stephen King adaptation The Life of Chuck is said to be a beautiful film with heartbreaking elements
The upcoming film The Life of Chuck is the latest Stephen King adaptation from Mike Flanagan, who has previously been at the helm of the Stephen King adaptations Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep (and is also developing a series adaptation of The Dark Tower for Amazon Studios) – but it is not a horror movie. Flanagan has let it be known that this isn’t horror, and cast member David Dastmalchian has said the same in a new interview with Gizmodo, describing the film and elements in it as beautiful and heartbreaking.
Dastmalchian, who was also in the recent King adaptation The Boogeyman, said (with thanks to Coming Soon for the transcription), “It’s beautiful. You think, ‘Oh, Mike Flanagan, Stephen King, this thing’s going to just be the most horrifying, terrifying, thing you’ve ever seen.’ [But] it is so beautifully rendered, heartfelt, the drama, the performances. The cast in this is deep. [Matthew] Lillard has a moment in this film that just breaks my heart. Karen Gillan, another one who I think rides that incredible ski slope between her small indie art films and then big studio budgeted things. One of the best actors in Hollywood right now. Kate Siegel, I mean there are so [many] great people! Ah, what a joy.“
Based on the short story from King’s 2020 anthology If It Bleeds, The Life of Chuck consists of three separate stories linked to tell the biography of Charles Krantz in reverse, beginning with his death from a brain tumor and ending with his childhood in a supposedly haunted house.
Tom Hiddleston (Loki) is playing Chuck, with Mark Hamill (Star Wars) playing a character named Albie. They and Dastmalchian are joined in the cast by Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave), Jacob Tremblay (The Predator), Mia Sara (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), Benjamin Pajak (Past My Bedtime), Trinity Jo-Li Bliss (Avatar: The Way of Water), Q’orianka Kilcher (The New World), Antonio Raul Corbo (Into the Dark: Pilgrim), Harvey Guillén (What We Do in the Shadows), Carl Lumbly (Doctor Sleep), Annalise Basso (Ouija: Origin of Evil), Samantha Sloyan (The Midnight Club), Rahul Kohli (Midnight Mass), Matt Biedel (Aliens Abducted My Parents), Sauriyan Sapkota (The Fall of the House of Usher), Saidah Arrika Ekulona (The Haunting of Hill House), Michael Trucco (Battlestar Galactica), Violet McGraw (M3GAN), Molly C. Quinn (Castle), and Heather Langenkamp (A Nightmare on Elm Street). As Dastmalchian mentioned, Matthew Lillard (Scream), Karen Gillan (Guardians of the Galaxy), and Kate Siegel (Hush) are in the cast as well.
Filming on The Life of Chuck wrapped back in November, and Flanagan has since confirmed that post-production has been completed as well. Now we just need to know the release date.
Are you looking forward to the beautiful, heartbreaking Stephen King / Mike Flanagan collaboration The Life of Chuck? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
