Students bag film rights for dollar

HORROR author Stephen King has sold film rights to British students for a dollar.

The students bagged the deal after spotting one of King’s short stories on sale on his website for $1 – about 77p.

Alfie Evans, 16, one of the students at Blaenau Gwent Film Academy in Tredegar, South Wales, said: “Being given an opportunity to bring one of Stephen King’s novels to life is crazy.” The story, Stationary Bike – published in 2003 – is about an artist cycling to lose weight, but a series of nightmarish scenarios unfold.

A similar deal led little-known director Frank Darabont to make the 1994 prison blockbuster The Shawshank Redemption, based on one of King’s novellas.

The author, 71, worth $400million, said: “I saw a way to give back a little of the joy the movies had given me.”