Prolific producers Ryan Murphy and Jason Blum are teaming up with Netflix for a feature adaptation of Stephen King’s short story Mr. Harrigan’s Phone.
Featured in the author’s most recent collection of short stories called If It Bleeds, Mr. Harrigan’s Phone follows a young boy who befriends an older billionaire who lives in his small-town neighborhood. As the years go by, the boy buys the old man an iPhone, and while he is reluctant to accept the gift at first, he comes to enjoy it. When the old man dies, the boy discovers that not everyone who is dead is gone, as he discovers he’s able to communicate with his friend beyond the grave by leaving voicemails on the smartphone that was buried with him.
John Lee Hancock, director of such films as The Blind Side and Saving Mr. Banks, has been tapped to write and direct, and Carla Hacken, producer of the critically acclaimed Hell or High Water, will be producing the Netflix series along with Murphy and Blum. Blumhouse is also currently readying for production on another adaptation of a Stephen King work, Firestarter, for Universal, which is a science fiction thriller about a father/daughter pair fleeing from the government after it is discovered that the daughter has developed powerful pyrokinetic abilities.
Mr. Harrigan’s Phone marks the streamer’s fourth King project, following Gerald’s Game, 1922 and In the Tall Grass.