Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with some great casting news. I'm a big fan of Stephen King's short stories and his last book of shorts he published, EVERYTHING'S EVENTUAL was fantastic. From that book comes this story, 1408, about a man who debunks paranormal phenomena. He investigates a notorious haunted hotel room in a place called the Hotel Dolphin, room 1408, and encounters real evil.

That man is being played by Lane Meyer himself, Mr. John Cusack. Great casting. In the story, it's very much a one character show. We spend most of our time as a reader along for the ride in Mike Enslin's mind, or at the very least sitting on Enslin's shoulder.

If Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT, ED WOOD) rewriting Matt Greenberg's (REIGN OF FIRE) first stab at the script can successfully crack the story into feature length this could be the creepiest Stephen King movie since the heyday of CARRIE and THE SHINING. Scott and Larry are talented folk, so if anyone can do it they can.

DERAILED's Mikael Hafstrom is set to direct at Dimension, who also have picked up King's CELL recently. It's an interesting time for us Stephen King fans with the above two projects in the works, THE TALISMAN still lingering somewhere in the void and Johnathan Schaech adapting BLACK HOUSE (for Akiva Goldsman) and FROM A BUICK 8... plus there's George Romero's possible take on THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON and Frank Darabont still floating about with two of King's career best works, THE MIST and THE LONG WALK. Interesting time!