From A Buick 8 - What We Know So Far

Stephen King's "From a Buick 8" is one of his more unique novels. It does, after all, feature a police car which serves as a front for a stabilizing interdimensional (and monstrous) force between worlds. Yep, it's King gone Lovecraftian, which might be hard to bring to life once it comes to the big screen. The novel itself is properly eerie, with some truly surprising twists, that could require a ton of special effects work, including mysterious portals to other worlds. It's something entirely different that King fans will likely be lining up around the block to see it when it's released.

"From a Buick 8" is currently in a state of pre-production, and it's got a director and production company attached, which are natural building blocks toward getting a final movie out there. What do we know about who will star in it, what the movie will be about, and when it will be released? Here's everything we know so far.

"From a Buck 8" officially has a production company attached and a director, but no start date for filming. The good news is that when a film locks in a director, the scripting stage is generally in progress. What that means is production will likely start on the film within the next year, should there be no behind-the-scenes lumps and bumps to contend with and no further COVID-19 restrictions or delays to hinder the filmmaking process.

Adding in time for costuming, effects work and filming, and you're likely to see the big screen version of "From a Buick 8" by at least 2023. Because King's films are a great fit for the Halloween season, it's possible that you can anticipate an early-to-late fall release. While it could also end up in the horror-friendly late-October slot, which will all but guarantee big Halloween-related box office bucks, that remains to be seen.

There haven't been any stars attached to the movie yet, but a famous actor is involved with the production of the movie. Thomas Jane, who has formed Renegade Entertainment with Courtney Lauren Penn, will be co-producing the film. In August 2020, Jane joined the Kingcast Podcast crew to talk about the project. Because Jane himself has appeared in multiple King adaptions (including "Dreamcatcher" and "The Mist"), it will be interesting to see what he brings to producing another part of the horror master's oeuvre. 

Jim Mickle, according to the Kingcast (via Comicbook.com), has been attached to direct the film. Mickle has directed a number of independent horror features, including "Stake Land," "We Are What We Are," "Cold in July," and "In the Shadow of the Moon," which had a 2019 Netflix debut. Jane seems to be excited to have Mickle on the project, calling the director "pretty f*****g good" on the podcast.

The film is an adaption of King's work, so we can expect that it will follow the general structure of his novel. Not every film adaption of his work, naturally, follows his books to the letter — from De Palma's "Carrie" ending with a nightmare return from the grave to shifts in time and content in the two adaptions of King's "It," scripts of King's work have created some interesting discrepancies between book and screen.

The general plotline of "From a Buick 8" concerns itself with Troop D, a Pennsylvania State Police unit, which has been sitting on an enormous secret since 1979. When Ned Wilcox – son of Curt Wilcox, one of the man who originally discovered the titular Buick 8 – starts hanging around the barracks, he learns the secret his father and his cop buddies have been hiding from the world, and soon finds himself drawn into the vehicle's horrifying web.

We'll have to see how closely the movie's plot hews toward the book's.