Stephen King sold the film rights to one of his stories to teenagers for $1

Stephen King has written a whole damn lot of stories over the course of his 40-plus year career. Like, a lot a lot. He wrote one about an astronaut who grows eyes all over his body, he wrote one about a guy who turns into a cat-eating blob after drinking a “bad” beer, he wrote one about a woman who successfully gives birth despite being decapitated in a car crash, and so on. And while a lot of his work has been adapted to film in one form or another, a lot hasn’t. King’s got so many stories, he’s practically giving them away to filmmakers.

Case in point: King recently sold the film rights to his short story Stationary Bike, originally published in the fifth edition of From the Borderlands in 2003, for a buck. The buyers are Alfie Evans and Cerys Cliff, 16 and 14 respectively, both of them students at the Blaenau Gwent Film Academy. They requested the rights through the Dollar Babies section of King’s website, where the author lists his stories not currently under contract and offers to sell them to anyone who asks for the low low price of $1. When we said he’s practically giving his stories away, we’re not kidding.

Evans and Cliff expect to make the movie with their 30 classmates, and to have it out by the spring. It’s a pretty sweet deal for a budding filmmaker, although there was one catch. “They insist that we send him a copy,” said Phillips. “That was part of the contract — Stephen always loves to see the work.”

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That’s pretty adorable. And the program isn’t just about good vibes. Frank Darabont, the guy behind The Green Mile, The Walking Dead and The Shawshank Redemption (also a King adaptation) got his start directing The Woman in the Room, a King short story he bought from the author in a similar fashion way back when. Stephen King makes star.

Also, Stationary Bike is about a guy who tries to lose weight but encounters resistance from the little men inside him who clean the fat from his arteries. They’re mad at him for eating better and robbing them of work. Or maybe the guy is imagining it? In any case, I’d watch that.

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h/t Bloody Disgusting, SyFy