In a very competitive situation, Anonymous Content has landed the rights to Sleeping Beauties, the upcoming supernatural/suspense novel by horror master Stephen King and his son, Owen King. Anonymous will be partnering with the Kings to develop Sleeping Beauties as a TV series.

Scribner

Set for a September release by Simon & Schuster‘s Scribner, Sleeping Beauties takes place in the near future in a small Appalachian town whose primary employer is a women’s prison. Something happens when women go to sleep; they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent. And while they sleep they go to another place. Meanwhile, the men are abandoned, left to their increasingly primal devices. One woman, the mysterious Evie, is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease. Is Evie a medical anomaly to be studied? Or is she a demon who must be slain?

Oscar-winning producer Michael Sugar (Spotlight) and Ashley Zalta will executive produce the series for Anonymous Content. Sugar and Zalta also are executive producing Netflix’s mystery drama series The OA, recently renewed for a second season, and the high-profile upcoming Netflix series Maniac, starring Emma Stone and Jonah Hill with Cary Fukunaga directing, which is set to go into production at the end of summer. Sugar’s series credits also include Cinemax’s The Knick and Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why.

Stephen King has published more than 60 novels, books and short-story collections, which have sold 350 million-plus copies. Many have been adapted for film and television, most recently features It and The Dark Tower, limited series 11.22.63 and the upcoming horror series Castle Rock, both for Hulu with J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot.

Owen King and his brother, fellow writer Joe Hill, are developing their original feature script Fade Away as a television series for Miramax and Miguel Sapochnik. Owen King is also co-writing with Mark Poirier Alien Invasion for Constantin Film based on their graphic novel.

Stephen King is repped by Paradigm. Owen King is repped by the Lynn Pleshette Literary Agency and Thruline Entertainment.