Ep. 110 – Julia Marchese – Knows What You Need

Welcome to Episode 110 of The Stephen King Podcast!

Filmmaker Julia Marchese has just announced her new project and comes on the podcast to talk about it. Marchese will next be adapting Stephen King‘s short story I Know What You Need into a short film which she will also direct.

The Indiegogo campaign to fund the film launches Monday, October 5th and runs until Saturday, October 24.  Marchese’s first film was the 2016 documentary Out of Print about the importance of revival cinema and 35mm film exhibition to culture & featured interviews with Rian Johnson, Edgar Wright, Kevin Smith, Joe Dante, Patton Oswalt, Seth Green and many more.

Marchese acquired the film rights to the story as part of Stephen King’s Dollar Baby Program, which allows the rights to certain short stories of his to be bought for one dollar (and you really do send Stephen King a dollar bill in the mail).

That means you can be part of a project that Stephen King himself will watch. I Know What You Need is a short story that was first featured in the September 1976 issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine, and then compiled into the short story collection Night Shift in 1978. The story centers on Elizabeth, a popular college junior who is approached one night by Edward, an unkempt outcast whose first words to her are “I Know What You Need” – and she is shocked to discover that he does.

The film will be set in the year the story was first published – 1976.  The film will be shot on the gorgeous campus of the University of Maine, where Stephen King attended and where the story is set. That means this film will be shot in the exact same locations that Stephen King wrote about in the story. 

Marchese is an avid Stephen King fan and has been a loyal Constant Reader since she was a child. In addition to reading his works growing up, she has also spent the last two and a half years reading over 40 of Stephen King’s books that are a part of his vast multiverse connected to The Dark Tower series. She is also a film programmer, actor and the co-host of the popular horror podcast Horror Movie Survival Guide.   She is beyond thrilled at this opportunity to adapt her favorite short story by her favorite author for the screen.  Her Indiegogo campaign runs from October 5 -24, and she appreciates shares just as much as donations!