Stephen King's Son Joe Hill Is Bringing an Unpublished Story to the Big Screen for an Unexpectedly Tender Reason
He clinched the role after The Black Phone director went to bat for him.
Joe Hill — yes, Stephen King’s kid, and also a very successful horror writer in his own right — keeps one foot firmly in film and TV. He knocks out a screenplay every year, and the reason he does it is both practical and very American.
The new script: an unpublished ghost in the machine
Hill told Mashable he’s currently revising a screenplay he was hired to deliver for 2025. The twist: it’s based on one of his own stories that hasn’t even hit shelves yet. He wrote a novella, kept it in the drawer, and now he’s turning that into a movie before the prose version eventually gets published. Plot details are under wraps, but given Hill’s track record, expect something on the eerie side of the street.
Why he writes one screenplay every year
Hill says he cranks out a script annually 'for the healthcare.' He gets his family’s coverage through the Writers Guild of America, and to stay eligible, he has to hit the guild’s yearly requirements. That stopped being hypothetical in 2024 when his wife received a cancer diagnosis.
'It’s so important to have access to that healthcare insurance.'
The good news: his wife has fully recovered. But the yearly script cadence isn’t going anywhere — it’s how he keeps the safety net intact.
How the 2025 project came together
A lapse in coverage pushed Hill to move fast, so he dusted off that unpublished novella and sent it — plus his take on how to adapt it — to director Scott Derrickson (who previously turned Hill’s short story into 2022’s The Black Phone). Derrickson loved it, told him 'We gotta do this,' and helped land Hill the job. Hill’s now revising the screenplay for Sony Screen Gems.
Receipts: past adaptations and what’s next
- The Black Phone (2022): Scott Derrickson’s hit horror film is based on a Joe Hill short story.
- In the Tall Grass (2019): Netflix’s creepy feature adapts a novella Hill co-wrote with Stephen King.
- Locke & Key: The Netflix series came from Hill’s comic books and turned into a fan favorite.
Hill’s plan for his fifties
He’s aiming to write a novel every year and a screenplay every year, with the next two scripts adapting other writers’ material — something he sounds genuinely excited about. And yes, he’ll still slip in work based on his own stories when the timing makes sense, even if those stories haven’t officially seen the light of day yet.