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Veteran actor Donald Sutherland and Jaeden Martell, who appeared in the It movies, will star in Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, an adaptation of a Stephen King short story being produced by Jason Blum’s Blumhouse and Ryan Murphy. The announcement was made as part of the second annual BlumFest, which celebrates the many spooky projects from scaremaster Blum.
John Lee Hancock wrote and is directing the horror thriller for Netflix. Production begins this month.
Phone hails from King’s anthology collection If It Bleeds, released in 2020. It tells of a young boy who befriends an older, reclusive billionaire, Mr. Harrigan. When the man passes away, the boy discovers that not everything dead is gone and finds himself able to communicate with his friend from the grave through the iPhone that was buried with him.
Sutherland is playing Harrigan while Martell plays the boy.
Producing are Blum, Murphy and Carla Hacken. Executive producing are Blumhouse Television’s Chris McCumber and Jeremy Gold and Scott Greenberg.
The plan is for the movie to debut on Netflix in 2022.
Sutherland’s vast résumé ranges from classics such as M.A.S.H., Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Kelly’s Heroes to playing vile President Snow in the Hunger Games movies. He recently played Nicole Kidman’s father in HBO’s The Undoing limited series.
Martell played Bill Denbrough in the hit two-part adaptation of King’s It. He co-starred with Chris Evans in Apple miniseries Defending Jacob and appeared in Knives Out (also with Evans). He recently signed on to star in a reboot of 1980s vampire movie The Lost Boys.
Sutherland is repped by CAA and Klevan Longarzo. Martell is repped by CAA, Emily Cho Talent Management and Jackoway Austen.
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