‘Yellowjackets’ Sophie Thatcher & Chris Messina Starring In Adaptation Of Stephen King Short Story ‘Boogeyman’ For 20th Century

EXCLUSIVE: Sophie Thatcher, who is coming off her breakout role in the hit Showtime series Yellowjackets, and Chris Messina are set to star in the 20th Century Studios adaptation of the Stephen King short story The Boogeyman, with 21 Laps producing.

The film will debut on Hulu, with Rob Savage set to direct. 21 Laps’ Shawn Levy, Dan Levine & Dan Cohen are producing. Production is expected to start next month.

Mark Heyman has been writing the script after Scott Beck & Bryan Woods and Akela Cooper wrote the original drafts. It originally was developed by 21 Laps as a Fox film and now finds new life through Hulu. They’ll begin prep and casting quickly to start early next year. Beck and Woods are exec producers.

The Boogeyman was published in 1978 as part of The Night Shift collection of short stories that King wrote over the years for magazines. It was collected in a bestselling anthology and published the year after The Shining became a huge bestseller for the author. This will be the 10th short story in the 20-story collection to be turned either into a feature film or TV movie. Among the others are Children of the Corn, Maximum Overdrive, The Mangler and Sometimes They Come Back.

The original short was truly scary and dealt with a man’s visit to a psychiatrist where he recounted how his children were each killed by the title character. The story follows a teenage girl who’s still reeling from the tragic death of their mother and finds herself and her brother plagued by a sadistic presence in their house and struggle to get their grieving father to pay attention before it’s too late.

Thatcher is coming off her acclaimed role as young Natalie in the hit Showtime series Yellowjackets and became one of the big breakthroughs in a cast full of rising talent. She also recently was seen in The Book of Boba Fett for Disney+.

Messina had himself a busy 2021 starting with the Netflix thriller I Care a Lot. His film Call Jane premiered at Sundance this month and also stars for Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver. Next up for him is the Starz Watergate series Gaslit that also stars Sean Penn and Julia Roberts.

Thatcher is repped by ICM Partners and Anonymous Content and Messina is repped by CAA and Management 360.

21 Laps’ next projects include The Adam Project, directed by Levy and the fourth season of Stranger Things at Netflix. Cheaper by the Dozen, Crater and an animated version of Night at the Museum are launching this year on Disney+. The company is in pre-production on Netflix;s All the Light We Cannot, See which Levy is directing, and the second season of Shadow and Bone, and Rosaline is in post-production for Hulu.