‘The Monkey’s Osgood Perkins on Why It Needed Changes Made to the Original Stephen King Story

Osgood Perkins, the director of one of 2025’s highly anticipated horror films, The Monkey, has shared why he made some changes to the story written by Stephen King. Apparently, Disney is to blame. However, Perkins has no issues with the changes, and they’re part of his revision of the original story about the cursed toy.

The Monkey is based on a short story King published in Gallery magazine in 1980, which was then revised for the 1985 collection Skeleton Crew. If you’ve read this one before, then you know that the monkey in question likes to bang cymbals and announce he’s about to do something nasty. But as it turns out, Perkins couldn’t use a cymbal-banging monkey toy (also known as “Jolly Chimp”), because of a connection to a movie that the House of Mouse owns.

Perkins spoke to GamesRadar about The Monkey and addressed changing the musical instrument used by the toy (if you don’t remember the toy, you can see it in the Close Encounters of the Third Kind scene where all the toys come to life), which now bangs the drums:

“When I was given the assignment, the producer said, ‘Oh, by the way, Disney owns the cymbals, because of [the toy monkey in] Toy Story.’

“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!”

When Was the Last Time a Stephen King Story Inspired a Horror Comedy?

But the monkey switching musical instruments wasn’t the only change that Perkins made. He found the original story to be a bit dark, and that wasn’t the movie he wanted to make. It appears he wanted to incorporate some humor into the script and not make a basic “cursed toy” movie.

“I took a playful horror shine to it right away,” the director explained. “That was important to me from the get-go with this project, that it wasn’t going to be dreadfully somber. It was going to be more comedic, and cozy, which I think seemed correct for a movie about a toy. I wanted to steer away from the more serious movies about possessed toys, which don’t ring true for me.”

I hope everybody goes into it with dread and carries their dread around with them, but is also happy to have a laugh.

Related

Stephen King Shares His Honest Review of ‘The Monkey’ Ahead of Release

The Master of Horror has always been outspoken about movies based on his works.

Perkins was also forced to make some changes to the story in regard to the period in which it takes place. He originally wrote the story to take place in the 1980s, given the success of shows like Stranger Things. However, he also felt that by doing that, the story was too similar to another Stephen King adaptation:

“‘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. Initially, the movie that I wrote was set in the ’80s, with the childhood stuff in the ’50s, because that felt very Stephen King to me. But of course, ‘It’ already did that, and ‘Stranger Things’ took that away, so we moved it to the ’90s and the present.”

The Monkey

Release Date

February 19, 2025

Runtime

98 Minutes

Director

Osgood Perkins

Writers

Osgood Perkins

Producers

John Rickard, Natalia Safran, Ali Jazayeri, Chris Ferguson, Fred Berger, Giuliana Bertuzzi, James Wan, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, John Friedberg, Jason Cloth, David Gendron, Michael Clear, Jesse Savath, Peter Luo, Dave Caplan

You can view the original article HERE.