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‘The Monkey’ Filmmaker Osgood Perkins Says the Studios “Don’t Want to See” Horror-Comedy

Despite having powerful producers James Wan and Peter Safran aboard the Stephen King adaptation, no major studio wanted Perkins' take on the project before indie outfit Neon boarded: "I had to take it and run.”

Producers James Wan (via Atomic Monster) and Peter Safran (via TSC) approached Perkins about adapting Stephen King’s short story about a lethal toy monkey, but the stern tone of the existing script on file was at odds with the filmmaker’s own instincts for such a movie. Besides the tone, Perkins knew he needed to tailor the bones of King’s story to his own sensibility, and so the toy monkey became a heightened symbol of life and death, in that you never know when and how the fates are going to call your number. Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Perkins also discusses why he felt minimal pressure adapting King, before explaining how Guillermo del Toro’s support has kept him on track during his career ascent since 2020’s Gretel & Hansel.

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