HBO's New 'Stephen King Meets Guillermo del Toro' Horror Thriller Is 32 Years In The Making

Published Nov 1, 2026, 7:00 PM EST

Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020.

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The news that HBO is rebooting an iconic horror movie that influenced everyone from Stephen King to Guillermo del Toro could not be more exciting. If the success of 2025’s It spinoff Welcome to Derry and the same year’s movie adaptation of Frankenstein didn’t make it obvious enough already, Stephen King and Guillermo del Toro are two of horror’s biggest names on the screen and the page.

The pair have influenced each other’s work over the decades, and both have numerous exciting projects on the way in the coming years. While del Toro is currently reportedly working on a stop-motion animated movie, Prime Video’s reboot of King’s debut novel Carrie was recently released to critical acclaim. Reviewers said that The Haunting of Hill House’s Mike Flanagan managed to make the story his own despite stiff competition from director Brian De Palma’s legendary 1976 movie adaptation of the book.

As such, it was a welcome surprise when Prime Video confirmed that Carrie would receive a second season, but this isn’t the only upcoming horror show that should be getting fans of King and Del Toro excited. According to Deadline, HBO are currently working on a reboot of director Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal eco-horror The Birds, with Succession’s Sarah Snook set to star in the limited series.

Various Follow-Ups To The Birds Have Been Worked On Since 1994

Universal Pictures

Based on Rebecca author Daphne du Maurier’s novella of the same name, The Birds is an iconic horror movie that sees a swarm of lethally vicious birds attack the unsuspecting denizens of a small seaside town. Deliberately paced, surprisingly ambiguous, and drenched in atmosphere, Hitchcock’s movie version of the novella is a horror classic that is as acclaimed as his 1960 magnum opus Psycho.

However, HBO’s take on The Birds will tell an entirely different story, starring Snook as the new protagonist Myra Massey. Returning to her hometown, Myra attempts to look into her childhood friend’s mysterious disappearance while juggling a bitter custody battle over her young daughter. In a plot that sounds as indebted to HBO’s classic murder mystery Sharp Objects as Hitchcock’s The Birds, Myra tackles both a serial killer and deadly birds with a mysterious link to these unsolved deaths.

Written by The Leftovers producer Tom Specially and produced by Harry Potter franchise veteran David Herman, this new take on The Birds is the latest in a string of fresh spins on the classic story. A remake was announced in 2007, while a BBC show based on the novella was announced ten years later in 2017, only for neither project to ever materialize.

Notably, although these various attempts at remakes never came to fruition, it should be noted that Halloween II director Rick Rosenthal did direct a 1994 TV movie sequel titled The Birds II: Land's End. The fact that Rosenthal opted to have his name removed from the finished film and replaced with the infamous Hollywood pseudonym Alan Smithee says everything that readers need to know about the critically maligned misfire.

The Birds Has Influenced Everyone From Stephen King To Guillermo del Toro

As disastrous as The Birds II: Land's End may have been, this didn’t hurt the original movie’s reputation. In fact, even though Peacock’s prequel series Crystal Lake managed to outdo Friday the 13th’s critical reception, it would be far harder for the upcoming HBO show to outperform Hitchcock’s movie. With a Rotten Tomatoes critical rating of 96%, The Birds is broadly considered one of the best and most influential horror movies ever made.

The movie influenced everyone from King to Del Toro, with George A. Romero citing its influence on the siege movie plotting of 1968’s Night of the Living Dead and John Carpenter using Hitchcock’s imagery in various iconic movies from Halloween to Assault on Precinct 13. Thus, HBO’s fresh take on The Birds has some pretty huge shoes to fill.