Even Salem's Lot director Gary Dauberman didn’t know what was going on with his movie

For years now, Stephen King and his fans have been wondering: What’s going on with the Salem’s Lot movie? Shot in 2021, the adaptation was meant to be released in 2022 before getting pushed to 2023, before being removed from Warner Bros. Discovery’s calendar altogether. According to King, the movie was good and not “embarrassing,” so he didn’t know what the hold-up was—and neither did director Gary Dauberman. “I had the same questions everybody else did,” Dauberman now tells Vanity Fair. “This movie was made at a time when that transition to the new ownership was happening, which was an interesting experience. At a certain point, it’s out of your control. People were asking me, ‘Where’s the movie? Where’s the movie?’ I wish I had an answer for them other than a shrug and ‘I don’t know.'”

Salem’s Lot was uniquely plagued by “COVID-related delays,” the WB and Discovery merger, and the writers/actors strikes. In the latter case, Salem’s Lot was supposedly downgraded from theatrical to a streaming release on Max to backfill the content gap from the strikes. Of course, Max has had a fair amount of post-strike content, including big hits like House Of The Dragon, so it’s unclear why Salem’s Lot was needed to bolster the service. In fact, pushing Salem to streaming is exactly the opposite of the strategy that David Zaslav touted during the aforementioned transition to new ownership, which was to “fully embrace theatrical.” Batgirl was axed in 2022 allegedly because it had been made for streaming and wasn’t high enough quality for theatrical release. Salem’s Lot was made for theatrical release and is now debuting on streaming. There doesn’t seem to be any actual rhyme or reason to the WBD strategy—and, well, it shows, because the company is in a lot of trouble right now. 

For his part, Dauberman is just “excited it’s finally getting out there and people can see it.” However, he does have a suggestion for those planning to tune in: “As with most horror movies, I think audiences really elevate the experience,” he tells VF. “So I think getting as many people as you can cram on the couch would be my preferred way to watch this.” You and your friends can get together for a good (streaming-only) scare in October.