Storyboards, concept art, and more from Netflix's excellent new horror film In the Tall Grass

Netflix's big movie release this past week was In the Tall Grass, based on a short story by Stephen King and Joe Hill, and directed by Vincenzo Natali. To say much about the plot would spoil the fun of a first viewing, but there is already an incredible amount of information about the making of the film online.

Natali told SyFy about acquiring the option from King and Hill for a dollar, only to see the project seemingly reach a dead end:

Usually, these kinds of high-profile options run can five to seven figures, but that's not how they do it in Maine.

You option the material for a dollar, but you have to reach certain benchmarks, Natali said. It's a very clever thing he does, because he avoids getting his projects trapped in development hell. You have to reach certain benchmarks, and if you don't then you can lose the option.

One of those benchmarks is a tight turnaround time on the writing of the script. Natali was given three months to deliver a draft, but the timing of the deal was problematic for the writer/director. He had already committed to some TV projects, which meant that he had to bang out the first draft in just about three weeks.

The very thought that Stephen King would read something I wrote, let alone something I had to write in three weeks, was really, really frightening, he said.

But he met his deadline, and while he'll never know for sure if either King or Hill actually read the script, the option continued to the next step, which was to get it set up at a studio or production house in a timely matter.