Stephen King‘s son Joe Hill has had a pretty successful career as a novelist. He’s told some great stories many of which have been adapted for film and TV. Hill has yet to direct anything, but if he did, one film that he is interested in directing is a remake of the 1986 film Maximum Overdrive.
Stephen King actually made his directorial debut with that movie, so it’s kinda cool and interesting that Hill would want to take that on as his first directing gig if given the opportunity.
In Maximum Overdrive, “after a comet causes a radiation storm on Earth, machines come to life and turn against their makers. Holed up in a North Carolina truck stop, a group of survivors must fend for themselves against a mass of homicidal trucks. A diner cook, Bill Robinson (Emilio Estevez), emerges as the unlikely leader of the pack, attempting to find an escape plan for himself and the survivors, who include his boss, Bubba Hendershot (Pat Hingle), and a newlywed couple.”
One of the more iconic visuals of the film was a semi truck with a giant Green Goblin mask. One scene that really messed me up when I saw this film as a kid is when the soda machine started shooting soda cans at kids who were part of a little league baseball team, killing them. That’s one of those things that has stuck with me and haunted me because it was the first time I ever saw kids die in a movie! I didn’t think that kinda stuff happened in the movies!
While the film was a box office bomb when it was released, it did end up gaining a cult following over the years.
Anyway, during an interview with Mick Garris at Bloody Disgusting, Hill explained:
“I would only want to jump into directing if I had a chance to do the reboot of Maximum Overdrive. If someone offered me the chance to write and direct a relaunch of Maximum Overdrive, I’d jump at that in a second.”
He then went on to explain why, and reveals how he would handle the story:
“The time is right, okay. So basically, they’re all the self-driving vehicles. So it’s no longer a comet that sets them off, it’s a virus in the electronics that sets them off. And so you’ve got these giant Tesla semitrucks, ya know, wiping everyone out. I think it could be great.”
Is Maximum Overdrive film that you’d be interested in seeing Joe Hill remake?