'Longlegs' Director Osgood Perkins Says His Stephen King Film Will Be More Comedic

By Andrew Sanford | Film | July 23, 2024 |

By Andrew Sanford | Film | July 23, 2024 |

Longlegs is one of the most unsettling movies to be released in some time. It isn’t laden with jump scares. Instead, it lays a base of discomfort and dread and slowly but surely dials it up as the movie progresses. The imagery is tense and filled with intention. Nicolas Cage plays an unhinged monster. You’d think director Osgood Perkins would bring all this energy with him as he directs an adaptation of a Stephen King story. Not so!

Perkins’s next film will be based on Stephen King’s short story, The Monkey. In the tale, two brothers find a cymbal-clanging monkey that used to belong to their father. They then discover that the monkey can kill people close to its owner by clanging said cymbals together. When things go too far, one of the brothers decides to do away with the cursed toy for good.

It isn’t exactly a lighthearted story (as you should expect from King). Regardless, Perkins recently explained to Discussing Film that his take on The Monkey will be more “comedic” in tone. At least when compared to his current film. “Couldn’t be more different from Longlegs,” Perkins explained to the site. “It’s tonally comedic. It’s touching. It’s sentimental. It’s disgusting. It’s impish. It’s pretty textured and a lot of fun.”

I think you could use some of those words to describe Longlegs, but it’s fun to see Perkins assure fans that he’s going in a different direction. He continued, saying that The Monkey, “isn’t so darkly grisly as [Longlegs] is at all.” Part of Perkins’s excitement seems to stem from his relationship with his distributor, Neon.

Perkins insisted Nicolas Cage not be revealed in the promotional material for Longlegs. Neon agreed and managed to create a wildly successful ad campaign. Perkins teased to DiscussingFilm that he may have something similar in mind for The Monkey. “I’m really excited to see how Neon treats it,” he said of his new film. “Because they’ve treated my product so well so far.”

The Monkey will star Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, and Elijah Wood. Be prepared to not see the titular monkey in any of the trailers (I assume).

‘LONGLEGS’ director Osgood Perkins tells us that his next film ‘THE MONKEY’ is completely different, describing it as tonally more comedic and sentimental.

Starring Theo James, Tatiana Maslany and Elijah Wood. pic.twitter.com/YyzsUBHe3q

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) July 22, 2024