The latest adaptation of Stephen King’s classic vampire novel will be hitting cinemas in the fall with a confirmed September release.

While Stephen King fans are yet to see any footage from the latest adaptation of Salem’s Lot, the movie has landed itself a release date of September 9 exclusively in cinemas and not on HBO Max as originally expected. The classic tale of vampires taking over a small town is one of King’s best-known works and has already been adapted for television twice, once in 1979 in the best-known version directed by Tobe Hooper and starring David Soul, and again in 2004, starring Rob Lowe and Donald Sutherland. The latest iteration will be the first time the story has been produced for a big screen release.

According to a new report by Bloody Disgusting, the long-in-production movie of Salem’s Lot will arrive this fall, and considering the number of delays and changes that the project has gone through it will come as a relief to King’s fans that the date seems to be holding. The biggest surprise is that the movie will actually be heading to theaters ahead of a release on HBO Max after 45 days. With many movies being made for the streaming platform, it was previously believed that Salem’s Lot would be debuting on the streaming platform rather than on the big screen.

For many years, Stephen King movies were either exceptionally good or extremely bad, but over the last decade, with a couple of misfires, fans of Stephen King have been treated to some of the most successful adaptations of the author’s work that have ever come to screen. These have included Pet Sematary, the two-part IT and IT Chapter Two, and Gerald’s Game, with a Firestarter remake also coming this May and many other adaptations being developed for both TV and film releases.

Related: Everything We Know About Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot Remake

Salem’s Lot Will Be A Faithful Adaptation of King’s Novel

Salem’s Lot comes with some solid credentials when it comes to the creative team behind the movie. Saw director James Wan is on board as producer, promising to bring plenty of ominous darkness and scary moments to the film, while Gary Dauberman, who brought the hugely successful IT movies to the big screen, has written the screenplay and directs the film. In front of camera, the film doesn’t necessarily have all big names but with young up-and-coming stars like Lewis Pullman and Makenzie Leigh alongside well-known faces such as Game of Thrones alum Pilou Asbæk and William Sadler, who has already tasted with world of Stephen King in The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, the movie has a strong cast.


Salem’s Lot has featured in King’s novels in many ways, with characters from the novel returning in his Dark Tower books, and the town of Jerusalem’s Lot being the basis for the second season of Hulu’s TV series Castle Rock and EPIX series Chapelwaite. With just five months until this version of Salem’s Lot hits cinemas, it shouldn’t be too long before we get a first trailer and a first look at what new terror the film will bring within it this fall.

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