Well, Mike Flanagan has done it again. He's taken a Stephen King book and adapted it for the big screen, and the first trailer makes it look like The Life of Chuck is going to be a genuinely emotional epic.
In The Life of Chuck, Tom Hiddleston stars as Chuck Krantz, with the story told in reverse, sort of like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The saga begins with Chuck's death and goes back in time to his early childhood. Neon shared the official trailer, which is embedded above.
As you can see from some of the selected pull quotes featured in the trailer, critics are loving The Life of Chuck, with some even going so far as to call it the best King adaptation yet.
Hiddleston shares the role of Chuck with Jacob Tremblay, Cody Flanagan, and Benjamin Pajak. Mark Hamill and Mia Sara play Chuck's grandparents, and Karen Gillan and Chiwetel Ejiofor play "a divorced couple whose world is unraveled by the mystery of Chuck Krantz," per Variety.
You'll also recognize other actors who are regulars in Flanagan's works, including Carl Lumbly, Samantha Sloyan, Kate Siegel, Molly C. Quinn, Rahul Kohli, and Annalise Basso. A Nightmare on Elm Street star Heather Langkenkamp also has a role.
While the book he's adapting this time isn't a horror story, The Life of Chuck is a must-read for fans of King, especially if you enjoyed works of his like Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and Stand By Me. The Life of Chuck looks like it will follow along with those incredible films, offering a new way for Flanagan to make us weep.
Both the director and King are well known for their horror stories, but what they also excel at is character work and creating exceedingly well-rendered emotional beats and stories. Flanagan, in particular, is adept at bringing emotion into his stories, making his best works shine as both moving family dramas and horror.
The Life of Chuck premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September 2024, where it won the People's Choice Award. The genre-bending story has an 86% approval score based on 42 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
Flanagan's adaptation of King's 2020 novella is just one of several King adaptations he's working on. His Carrie television series for Amazon was officially greenlit and ordered to series recently, and he is also developing a Dark Tower series for the company.
A couple of other King adaptations are scheduled for this year, including dystopian horror The Long Walk and Edgar Wright's take on The Running Man starring Glen Powell.
The Life of Chuck will be released in theaters on June 13.