The film adaptation of the blockbuster horror indie novel How to Sell a Haunted House has found a director and a big name producer, none other than the director of Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness and Drag Me To Hell – Sam Raimi. The author of the book, Grady Hendrix, announced the news on Wednesday.
“Pupkin goes to Hollywood,” the author said in the post. Pupkin, of course, is a “red-and-yellow glove puppet with two stumpy fabric legs dangling down from his front and two little nubbin arms” and a “leering clown face,” per a review from the New York Times.
“Hendrix has created a wholly original creature in Pupkin, one as iconic as Chuckie or Pennywise,” the Times said. “Pupkin represents the losses of growing up. He’s the vehicle of an unfulfilled mother’s pain, her regrets and loneliness. He’s childhood trauma incarnate, delivered from one generation to the next.”
All of this sounds perfect for a Raimi-produced horror movie. Hendrix said he would handle the script and James Ashcroft, who directed Coming Home in the Dark, will handle the duties behind the camera. The story involves a woman named Louise who has to deal with her parent’s death and has to fly back to Charleston to sell their house.
Louise’s father is a lifelong academic and her mother was obsessed with puppets and dolls (uh oh, that’s never a good thing.) She also has to deal with a brother who never left home and resents her success. As she tries to get the house ready for sale, things go awry (when Pupkin enters the picture).
In an instance of serendipity, Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures will be the studio behind the production of the film. Hendrix is on a bit of a roll lately. His other bestselling novel My Best Friend’s Exorcism was recently picked up by Amazon Studios, and he’s adapting two other books as well: We Sold Our Souls and Horrorstör.
There’s no release date yet for the film, which will be released by Legendary Films, but we’ll keep you posted.