Stephen King adaptations typically fall into two camps: the sentimental drama, like “Stand By Me” or “The Shawshank Redemption;” or the bone-chilling horror of something like “The Shining” or “Christine.”
“Mr. Harrigan’s Phone,” produced by Ryan Murphy and Jason Blum, straddles both sectors – it’s the tale of a young boy (“It” alum Jaeden Martell) who befriends an elderly billionaire (Donald Sutherland). After the billionaire dies, he still communicates with the boy through the iPhone he was gifted shortly before his death. (Yes, this is a period movie set in the mid-2000s.) Both creepy and compelling, “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone” has something for everybody, especially if you’re a King fan (it’s remarkably faithful to the original story, from the 2020 collection “If It Bleeds”).
TheWrap spoke to Hancock about what it was like adapting King and collaborating with him, what he learned from the process and what scene King loved most (hint: it’s not from the book).
As someone who took classes at U Conn Stamford, it was nice to see it represented in the movie. What was it like shooting in Connecticut?
We loved it. It’s a lovely part of the world. I’d never been there for that period of time. I had visited for a day here, a day there kind of thing, but actually living there for six months. I liked it a lot.
You’ve done so many different types of movies, but nothing that even approaches horror. What was it about “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone” that spoke to you?
When I read it, I didn’t know what to expect, but Jason Blum called. He said, “It’s a novella. Read it and see if you might be interested in writing and directing.” And Stephen King. Love Stephen King. Sure, I’ll read it. Read and realized pretty quickly that it was in the Stephen King vein of “The Body,” which became “Stand By Me” or “Shawshank” or some of those kind of things. And more particularly “The Body” because of the coming-of-age aspect of it. And so I recognize that it wasn’t a straight-up horror movie, that it was more, as Ryan Murphy called it, I think aptly, a “paranormal coming-of-age.”
I was drawn to the characters first and foremost, their relationship, the burden of sadness and loss, and how it affects everybody, whether you’re in your 80s or whether you’re 10-years-old, and the relationship between Harrigan and Craig. And that’s the starting point for me. The theme of technology was interesting to me as well. But it’s not at the center of it for me.
What was your relationship with Stephen King before this? Were you one of his “avid readers”? Had you ever thought about adapting one of his earlier stories?
No. I mean, I haven’t necessarily. Even though I liked Stephen King a lot, I haven’t read every book. Of course, he has a bunch of them. But I guess I’d thought about how cool it would be to adapt Stephen King. I also thought it was probably a daunting task. You’re taking what he’s written and writing something slightly different for a different medium, and would he approve?
Well judging my his Twitter he did approve. How involved was he in this adaptation?
Yeah, it was an evolving process. I mean, the first thing was once I decided that I wanted to adapt and direct it, there were several different entities going after the rights to it. The package was put together with Ryan and Jason of, “John’s going to write and direct it, and we’re producing along with Carla Hacken. And what do you think?” And so I wrote a letter. Jason suggested that I write a letter to him, kind of like when sometimes you’ve got multiple offers on a house and you write a letter to the owner saying, “My kids go to school down the street. We love this house.” That kind of stuff. I wrote one of those, but I didn’t have any answers. I just said, “I think it’s a really provocative novella and here’s what I’m drawn to, here are the themes that I’m drawn to. I think it’s a really tough adaptation. I don’t have any answers, but I would love to try.”
And I thought, Okay, maybe we’ll hear back, maybe we won’t. But probably 20 minutes later, I got an email back from him saying, “Hey, John. Thanks for the kind words. Let’s do this thing, Steve.” That was it. And so the relationship began there and emailing pretty much every week. I just emailed him a few days ago.
Part of it is just to keep the connection in case I really found myself in a bind like, “You got to help me with something from the story that says this and that.” And there were a few of those things. I would throw out a, “Which do you think this character would do? This, or this?” Kind of things. And he would chime in, but he was always very respectful of, “Whatever you think, But I kind of think maybe this, but whatever you think.”
He is very respectful and didn’t want to intrude or have his shadow loom too large over our interpretation of his story as a movie because he realizes that they’re such different mediums. But then during prep, I’d send location photos and say, “Here are two Howie’s markets. You made this place up. In your mind’s eye, which one is the closest?” And he would go, “Oh gosh. How about the one with the red canopy?” Or whatever.
This continued on through production. I would send him pictures of locations, actors working, just because he seemed to really, really enjoy that. And I can understand it. You create something, and then you don’t get to visit because of a pandemic. At least you’re seeing the photographic evidence that it’s coming together. And then it was great showing him a cut of the movie and him really loving it.
People might be surprised with how 1:1 it is with the original story. What was the biggest challenge in terms of adapting and hedging so close to that original story?
Yeah, I think the challenge is you want to have some reverence for it, but you’re creating something for a different medium. I mean, the novella’s only 80-something pages. From the start, I knew that I was going to have to create new stuff, but hopefully in keeping with what Stephen had written and thematically was trying to say. You’re trying to intuit some of it. Also, you’re going to activate a lot.
In the novella, our narrator is talking about his life in the past. And so a lot of that is very, very internal, and it’s beautifully written and works really well on the page. Those things don’t tend to work as well in movies. We like things to happen instead of somebody telling us about something that happened. Taking some of these things that might be a paragraph in the novella and activating them, instead of hearing about Dusty Bilodeau, Craig gets on a bike and goes to a trailer park to find out where Dusty Bilodeau is, so that paragraph from the novella becomes three pages in a script. It’s just activating and keeping with the story and hopefully embracing thematically. I mean, Stephen said maybe his favorite scene is something that I just made up, but it’s completely in keeping with the characters and what they would say if they were in this situation.
Which scene is that?
It’s the one where Mr. Harrigan asked him, “Why do you come here?” And because I’d written the script and several of us would talk around the office and things like that. And it’s like thinking about Craig in high school and does he switch his days? What does he do? Does he have a girl? Those kind of things. And so I thought, Well, let’s just hang a light on that. Let’s have Mr. Harrigan ask him, “Why do you still come?”
And I think it’s important because not only does he give you an answer that lets you know that Craig really does love Mr. Harrigan and needs that time and loves that time together, but that the mentee has become the mentor. I mean, the child has become the adult in many ways. And I also think that it gives you an opportunity to see a side of Mr. Harrigan that you don’t see elsewhere, which is … Craig is his only friend, and his look at Craig when Craig leaves just tells you … I mean, when I wrote it, I said, “For the first time in his life, Mr. Harrigan has no words.” And Donald said, “I can’t wait for that moment. And that’s me saying no words and having no words to say in addition.”
There are some filmmakers, like Carl Reiner or Mick Garris or Frank Darabont, who have returned to the Stephen King well many times. Do you think you’d adapt another of his stories?
Oh, I would absolutely love to. It was such a great experience, and I would absolutely love to. It would have to be something that I thought that I would be the best person to do. When I look at something, I go, If there’s somebody that would do a better job than me on this or that feels about it more strongly than I do, then they should do it. Because it’s two years of your life. It’s waking up at 4:30 in the morning and all that stuff I hate. It’s like you’ve got to wake up being excited to go to work. And you can’t just do it because, Oh, it’s cool. It has to speak to you, and it has to be something, for me, something I need to learn from it, that I need to put on its feet and wake up at 4:30 and go learn what it is I’m trying to grow about.
What did you learn from this one?
I think I learned, weirdly enough, a bit of patience with regard to technology, because I’m of an age and a generation who looks around and understands that there advantages and disadvantages of course. But I think it’s been very easy to just say, “Well, it’s all mostly all bad.” And I think the fact that King so precisely created something where it’s not just the high school kids staring at their phone. It’s the 80-year-old guy who give him a phone and watch how fast he gets addicted. It’s not just, “Those damn kids. Get off my lawn,” at all. I also think that his humility in recognizing and saying that he was wrong, that he wants the phone, it’s like, “Yes, I am. I am going to bite.”
And then, I don’t know, it’s just also, I think having … I don’t know, friends are where you find them, and you find them in unusual places sometimes. And who would’ve thought at the start, he certainly didn’t, that, “I’m going to hire a 10-year-old boy, he’s going to come and read to me three days a week.” And he didn’t think that, “This is going to become the best friend I’ve ever had.” He also … He knew, but they have a shared sense of loss over a parent. And the loneliness and sometimes solitude that comes along with that, I mean, they are joined at the hip in that.
“Mr. Harrigan’s Phone” is streaming on Netflix now.
