New images have been unveiled to promote the Stephen King adaptation The Monkey, directed by Osgood Perkins
Back in March, we heard that production had wrapped on the Stephen King adaptation The Monkey, which is coming our way from the team of producer / genre regular James Wan and director Osgood Perkins, whose credits include The Blackcoat’s Daughter (a.k.a. February), I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, Gretel & Hansel, and the recent Nicolas Cage horror film Longlegs (you can read our review HERE). Longlegs was released by Neon – and they’ll also be giving The Monkey a theatrical release on February 21, 2025. Today, Entertainment Weekly has unveiled a batch of images from the film (plus a behind-the-scenes image), and those can be seen at the bottom of this article.
Perkins wrote the screenplay for The Monkey, working from a King short story. The film will tell the following story: When twin brothers Hal and Bill discover their father’s old monkey toy in the attic, a series of gruesome deaths starts occurring all around them. The brothers decide to throw the monkey away and move on with their lives, growing apart over the years. But when the mysterious deaths begin again, the brothers must reunite to find a way to destroy the monkey for good before it takes the lives of everyone close to them.
Theo James (The White Lotus) plays the twins in later years, while Christian Convery (Sweet Tooth) plays them in their younger days. Also in the cast are Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings), Tatiana Maslany (She–Hulk: Attorney at Law), Colin O’Brien (Wonka), Rohan Campbell (Halloween Ends), and Sarah Levy (Schitt’s Creek). The Entertainment Weekly article reveals that Maslany plays Hal and Bill’s mother; Wood plays Ted Hammerman, who’s married to Hal’s ex-wife and is threatening to adopt Hal’s son; Levy plays Hal and Bill’s aunt, who raises the boys as children and also appears in the later timeline. There’s also an image of Nicco Del Rio (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) as a priest.
James Wan and Michael Clear are producing The Monkey for Atomic Monster, while Jason Cloth and Dave Caplan produce for C2 Motion Picture Group. Executive producers include Brian Kavanaugh-Jones and Fred Berger of Automatik, Peter Luo and Nancy Xu of Stars Collective, John Friedberg of Black Bear, and Chris Ferguson. Atomic Monster and Stars Collective developed the project, and C2 Motion Picture Group provided the financing.
Wan previously provided the following statement: “Stephen King is the godfather of the horror genre. He had a huge influence on me as a child and throughout my career and it’s always been a dream to help bring one of his stories to life. The Monkey is a personal favorite, with its simple, iconic, and incredibly marketable conceit. And I can’t imagine anyone better than a visionary and lifelong genre fan like Osgood to bring this to life.“
In addition to directing the films mentioned at the top of this article, Perkins directed an episode of the recent revival of The Twilight Zone. He has also worked on the screenplays for the thriller Removal, the crime thriller Cold Comes the Night, and the horror film The Girl in the Photographs.
Are you looking forward to The Monkey? Check out the images, take a look at the Entertainment Weekly article, then let us know by leaving a comment below.