EXCLUSIVE: Stephen King short story Autopsy Room Four, about a man trapped in an autopsy room, is being made into a feature film with British director Ranjeet S. Marwa and veteran Hollywood exec Jon Levin, the former CAA agent turned producer and manager whose exec producer credits include Netflix’s King adaptation In The Tall Grass.
Horror maestro King has given the greenlight for the adaptation, which is to be written and directed by Marwa, who has been prolific in low-budget U.S. and UK genre fare to date. It is currently in development.
Autopsy Room Four delves into the mind of a man who, after a life-threatening accident, wakes up to find himself trapped in an autopsy room. As he confronts his own mortality, the story navigates themes of fear, survival, and the unknown.
The story was first published in King’s limited-edition collection Six Stories in 1997 and appeared in the anthology Robert Bloch’s Psychos later in the same year. In 2002, it was collected in King’s collection Everything’s Eventual. It was adapted into a short film in 2003 and was part of TNT’s Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From The Stories Of Stephen King in the summer of 2006.
Levin is the respected long-time former CAA agent who repped clients including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Andy Serkis, Neil Gaiman and Mimi Leder. During a near 40-year run at CAA as a business affairs executive and film and TV lit agent he helped package movies including Shrek, Midnight Run, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Bad Boys, and Mrs Doubtfire, and TV series such as The Leftovers, Outlander, Good Omens and American Gods.
He was most recently producer on Peacock movie If You Were The Last with Anthony Mackie and has served as exec producer on movies including Cut Throat City, Stargirl, The Breadwinner and Marshall. He continues to rep Leder, James V. Hart, David S. Ward and a host of other clients as a manager.
Marwa’s 2012 short film debut The Man Who Loved Flowers was inspired by Stephen King’s work. His 2018 feature Citizen Erased was adapted into a limited TV series for Amazon in 2021. Recent thriller Dig Me No Grave was acquired by Buffalo 8 while Spring Lakes was picked up by Gravitas Ventures.