Cujo, the vicious St. Bernard who terrified both ’80s kids and adults alike, is getting another shot at cinematic success. This time, from one of the unlikeliest of directors. According to a report from Deadline, it appears that Cujo, based on the novel by Stephen King about a rampaging killer dog, is getting a remake for Netflix. And the person behind the camera is none other than Black Swan and The Whale director Darren Aronofsky. The original Cujo novel came out in 1981, during the peak of Stephen King’s popularity, and made into a movie in 1983.
In the original Cujo novel and film, a St. Bernard in a small town is bitten by a rabid bat. It soon becomes a killer beast, terrorizing the locals. Somehow, King managed to write a whole novel around this premise and make it pretty good. Although he did admit years later he wrote the entire book in a cocaine binge in a single night. The master of horror has said in past interviews that he doesn’t even remember writing it. (It was a different time, folks.) A movie adaptation of Cujo came out in 1983, starring Dee Wallace from E.T. and The Howling. It was popular enough that for years, every dog owner scolded their badly behaved canine by calling them “Cujo.”
Cujo was one of two Stephen King adaptations to come out in 1983, along with John Carpenter’s Christine. The new Darren Aronofsky version will follow several recent cinematic remakes of Stephen King novels, like Carrie, Pet Sematary, and most recently, Salem’s Lot. None of them approached anything close to the cultural significance of their original versions, however. But with someone like Aronofsky at the helm, maybe Cujo will be the rare King remake that surpasses the original. And it almost certainly won’t be run-of-the-mill.
Content shared from nerdist.com.