Searchlight Pictures is developing a feature adaptation of Stephen King's 1996 novel Desperation. Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, the directors behind Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025), are attached to helm from a screenplay by Ryan Brennan. Sam Raimi will produce through his Ghost House Pictures banner, alongside Lipovsky and Stein. Romel Adam and Jose Cañas are executive producers.
The film follows unsuspecting travelers kidnapped by a sheriff in a Nevada mining town, the officer in thrall to an ancient malevolent entity called Tak. The 1996 novel is among King's darker efforts: a sustained confrontation between faith and something that predates it.
Desperation was adapted once before. In 2006, ABC aired a television movie directed by Mick Garris from a screenplay King wrote himself. It aired opposite the American Idol season finale and drew modest viewership. The Searchlight project would be the novel's first theatrical adaptation.
This marks the first collaboration between Raimi and King. Lipovsky and Stein previously directed the 2018 independent science fiction film Freaks before their mainstream breakthrough with Bloodlines. Taylor Friedman, Searchlight's SVP of Production, and creative executive Cameron Chidsey are overseeing for the studio.
No cast has been announced.