If you’re a fan of Stephen King or caught the bonkers trailer for director Osgood Perkins’ upcoming horror comedy The Monkey, you probably familiar with the sinister toy monkey at the heart of the story.
In King’s original short story, the toy monkey wields cymbals, clanging them together. But in Perkins’ adaptation, we see the monkey using a drum instead, and you might be wondering: Why the change?
Surprisingly, we have Disney to thank for that, and, according to Perkins, it might just be the best thing that happened to the movie.
Disney holds the rights to that specific depiction of a cymbal-clanging monkey toy that was featured in Toy Story. When Perkins was handed the reins to adapt The Monkey, there was a catch.
He told SFX Magazine: “The producer told me, ‘Oh, by the way, Disney owns the cymbals because of [the toy monkey in] Toy Story,‘” The solution was to Replace the cymbals with a drum.
This limitation could seem like a frustrating hurdle for a filmmaker trying to stay true to the source material. But Perkins took it in stride, and even embraced it.
He explained: “So it [couldn’t] be cymbals. What if it was a drum? It’s one of those things where a limitation becomes an opportunity. If you’re making movies and you’re not up for that adage then you’re in real trouble!
“’I was like, ‘Hey, that’s awesome. The drum is better.’ The drum is like a marching drum. It’s like, ‘Drum roll, please!’ before something happens. That’s better than cymbals. So thanks, Disney. I prefer it!”
But The Monkey doesn’t just play with iconic horror imagery; it also tackles the challenge of clicking into ‘80s nostalgia Perkins said: “Stranger Things kind of cornered the market on ‘It’s like movies from the ’80s, it’s like Gremlins, it’s like Spielberg!’ – and it did it so well and so successfully.”
Originally, his screenplay followed a similar timeline that included childhood flashbacks set in the ’50s, with the main story in the ’80s. But he pivoted. “We moved it to the ’90s and the present,” distancing the film from well-trodden territory while maintaining the King-inspired vibe.
The film promises an “outrageously gory” and “thoroughly gratuitous” movie-going experience and the trailer features people being brutally killed in a variety of ways with instruments such as a harpoon gun, a bowling ball, a shotgun, a pool, a hibachi knife, a lawnmower, and more.
In The Monkey, “When twin brothers Hal and Bill discover their father’s old monkey toy in the attic, a series of gruesome deaths starts occurring all around them. The brothers decide to throw the monkey away and move on with their lives, growing apart over the years.
“But when the mysterious deaths begin again, the brothers must reunite to find a way to destroy the monkey for good before it takes the lives of everyone close to them.”
When previously talking about the film Perkins said: “It’s gonna feel more like Misery or Creepshow or Gremlins or American Werewolf. It couldn’t be LESS like Longlegs.“
He went on to say: “To me, if you’re gonna make a movie about a toy monkey, you can be serious about it. But so much of King is funny and nostalgic-feeling.
“So we tried to make a movie that felt a little bit more like something from the late ’80s to ’90s.” For me, ideally, it’s the movie that kids and their parents wanna go see together.”
The movie stars Theo James (The White Lotus) alongside Tatiana Maslany (She–Hulk: Attorney at Law), Elijah Wood (Maniac), Christian Convery (Sweet Tooth), Colin O’Brien (Wonka), Rohan Campbell (Halloween Ends) and Sarah Levy (Schitt’s Creek).
The Monkey will be released in theaters on February 21, 2025. For fans of Stephen King, Osgood Perkins, or just great horror, The Monkey looks like a thrilling ride. And if it drums up some extra tension along the way? Well, we can all say, “Thanks, Disney!”