![James Wan, Gary Dauberman Tackling Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot'](https://cdn.statically.io/img/www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/james_wan_salems_lot_cover_gary_dauberman_split.jpg?w=1296&h=730&crop=1)
Stephen King’s vampire novel Salem’s Lot is heading to the big screen.
James Wan and Gary Dauberman, the respective producer and writer collaborators behind many of the biggest hits of the Conjuring horror universe, are teaming to adapt the novel for New Line.
Dauberman will write the script and serve as executive producer. Wan will produce, along with Roy Lee and Mark Wolper.
Published in 1975, King’s book centers on an author who returns to his hometown in order to write about an abandoned mansion in the small town. As he discovers the home has been bought by a mysterious man from Europe, the man also realizes that townspeople are slowly being turned into vampires. The writer bands together with a ragtag group to stop the spread of vampires, with the final confrontation happening in the house with the mysterious man.
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While Salem’s Lot has never been adapted to the silver screen, it has been translated to the small screen. A 1979 miniseries starred David Soul as the writer, and a sequel in 1987 followed. Rob Lowe starred in a more recent adaptation, which was made by TNT in 2004.
The new project has no director at this stage, though both Wan and Dauberman could make compelling candidates.
One of the most in-demand horror scribes in town, Dauberman knows his way around a scary story, having written Annabelle and Annabelle: Creation, movies that are part of the Conjuring universe and have made over $500 million worldwide. He also wrote the Conjuring spinoff The Nun, in addition to working on New Line’s adaptation of Stephen King’s It as well as the upcoming It: Chapter Two. Dauberman is making his directorial debut with the third Annabelle movie, Annabelle Comes Home, for which New Line and Warner Bros. have set a June 28 bow.
Wan made his career directing and producing horror movies, launching franchises such as Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring. He last directed the billion dollar hit Aquaman and is mulling his next gig behind the camera.
Both Wan and Dauberman are coming off the successful opening weekend of the horror movie The Curse of La Llorona, which raked in $26.7 million on a budget of only $9 million, and are teaming for the launch of Swamp Thing, based on the monstrous DC Comics creation and which is set to premiere on the DC Universe platform in May.
Dauberman is repped by ICM Partners, Industry Entertainment and Felker Toczek.
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