The Monkey: Everything we know about James Wan's upcoming adaptation of the Stephen King classic

**Spoiler alert**

The Monkey teaser ends on a horrific high: Theo James pulls out a nailpolished finger tip from his mouth, standing in front of bloodied curtains and with blood all over his clothes. The scene could seem gross to many, but it's darkly comic, too.

The teaser sets the tone for Osgood Perkins' upcoming comedy horror film, The Monkey, an adaptation of Stephen King's short story of the same name. At the core of the plot is a cymbal-banging monkey, who will be responsible for lots of deaths.

The James Wan co-produced film has Theo James co-starring with Tatiana Maslany, Elijah Wood, Colin O'Brien, and Rohan Campbell, while director Perkins also makes an appearance.

Osgood Perkins is known for his skill as a horror storyteller, having recently written and directed the Nicholas Cage-starrer, Longlegs, which garnered $127 million against a budget of around $10 million. His other works include Gretel & Hansel, Queer for Fear: The History of Queer Horror, and The Blackcoat's Daughter.

Everything that we know about The Monkey

People can watch it at night for one! The Monkey was wrapped in March 2024 and Neon will be distributing the film, having won the domestic rights at the Marché du Film. The production companies of the film include Atomic Monster, C2 Motion Picture Group, Range, Oddfellows Entertainment, Black Bear Pictures, and Stars Collective Films.

The Monkey is about the toy that doesn't do anything but is more of a harbinger of misfortune — death, to be more precise. Perkins explained this in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. He said:

"What if it's a comedy? Here's this monkey that doesn't do anything. It's not M3GAN. It doesn't attack. It's evil just in its existence. Things happen around it for no better reason than they do. Its presence makes people die in insane ways."

It will be releasing on February 21, 2025 in the US, marking another collaboration between Osgood Perkins and Neon, who previously joined hands for Longlegs.

What is the story of The Monkey?

Hal and Bill Shelburn are the protagonists of The Monkey, and the film begins with them as kids who find the toy that they later realize is something evil. Deaths start taking place around them after they've found the toy monkey, so they decide to get rid of it.

However, the toy comes back into their lives and a series of unfortunate events begins to happen. Now they need to find a way to destroy the cymbal-banging money, so people can stay safe. There are no details as to how they are going to do that but Stephen King's story gives us a better idea.

To destroy the toy monkey, Hal joins hands with his son Petey (played by Colin O'Brien) and stuff the toy in a bag full of heavy rocks, planning to throw it in a lake. Hal rows the boat to the deepest part of the water body so the monkey can never return.

Even in the final moments, as they throw the toy monkey away, there's misfortune: The boat breaks!

Interestingly, American literary critic Harold Bloom has implied that the theme of the story is the same as William Wymark Jacobs' The Monkey's Paw.