Blumhouse, Ryan Murphy Team for Stephen King Adaptation 'Mr. Harrigan's Phone' for Netflix

[HARDY]

 

John Lee Hancock has been tapped to adapt the short story.

Prolific producers Ryan Murphy and Jason Blum are teaming with Netflix for a feature adaptation of the Stephen King short story Mr. Harrigan’s Phone.

The story comes from the New York Times best-selling collection If It Bleeds and follows a young boy who befriends an older billionaire who lives in his small-town neighborhood. They bond over the man’s first iPhone. But when the man dies, the boy discovers that not everything dead is gone and finds himself able to communicate with his friend from the grave by leaving voicemails on the iPhone that was buried with him.

John Lee Hancock, the filmmaker behind The Blind Side and Saving Mr. Banks, has been tapped to write and direct.

Carla Hacken will produce along with Murphy and Blum, with Blumhouse Television’s Marci Wiseman and Jeremy Gold exec producing.

Blumhouse is readying for production on a remake of another King property, Firestarter, for Universal. Mr. Harrigan’s Phone marks the streamer's fourth King project, following Gerald’s Game, 1922 and In the Tall Grass.

Hancock, who is repped by CAA and Del Shaw, wrote the Mark Wahlberg action film Infinite and most recently directed the Denzel Washington detective thriller The Little Things.