STEPHEN KING CAN take a holiday; on-screen horror has found a new source for chills and thrills, and it doesn’t come in hardback. Instead, Hollywood is plumbing the depths of Reddit — the forum-style platform fuelled by user votes —for short stories and scary premises to spin into shows and movies.
The most prolific adaptation to date hit headlines in March, when Sydney Sweeney signed on to produce and star in a twisted thriller plucked from a short-story subreddit (a community within the platform dedicated to a specific topic). ‘I Pretended To Be A Missing Girl’ was written by Joe Cote, a Massachusetts high-school teacher who came up with the story in his kitchen during Covid. The 7,300word post, which went viral, follows a desperate drifter (Sweeney) who assumes the identity of missing girl Mikayla Murray in the hope of robbing her family. Once on the inside, she finds that all is terrifyingly not as it seems. The actor is putting out the film via her production company Fifty-Fifty films, with Forrest Gump screenwriter Eric Roth reportedly penning the script.
Sydney Sweeney will star in a new movie based on Reddit story ‘I Pretended To Be A Missing Girl’