Rebecca Ferguson’s Stephen King Sequel Officially Returns After 7 Years

2026 has been an exceptionally busy year for Rebecca Ferguson, who has already starred in several projects with more on the horizon. Much earlier in the year, Ferguson teamed up with Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy) for the new sci-fi thriller, Mercy. The film bombed at the box office thanks to its $60 million budget, but it went on to become one of the most-watched titles of the entire year on Prime Video.

Ferguson then returned to another key sci-fi role in her career, Juliette Nichols, in the third season of Silo on Apple TV — Apple has already confirmed that the fourth and final season of the show will begin streaming next year. In December, Ferguson will reprise her role as Lady Jessica in Dune: Part Three, which opens on the same day as Avengers: Doomsday.

Rebecca Ferguson has been starring in movies and TV shows for a long time, but one of the most overlooked roles of her career came back in 2019 when she teamed up with a Star Wars icon for a sequel to an all-time horror classic. We’re talking, of course, about Doctor Sleep, the supernatural thriller co-starring Ewan McGregor that was directed by Mike Flanagan, who has become a frequent adapter of Stephen King‘s work in the last few years.

Doctor Sleep is a sequel to The Shining, but the movie grossed only $72 million at the box office against a $45 million budget. Seven years later, Doctor Sleep is still without a home on streaming, but the movie has surged back into the VOD top 10 in several countries around the world — it’s officially staging a comeback.

• He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategize, doesn’t
  adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
• Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most
  people gives you a genuine edge.
• The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started
  thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
• You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone
  who simply refused to be where he expected.

• Crystal Lake, the Peacock prequel series, dropped all eight episodes on October 15, 2026.
• It ended a 17-year gap, the longest the franchise has ever gone without a new entry.

• But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly
  wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
• Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia, the fact that nothing
  ever looks wrong until it already is.
• Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before
  you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
• You are not a target waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is
  wrong, and acts on it.

• John Carpenter is producing a new Halloween film with Blumhouse and Miramax.
• The 1978 mask was a store-bought Captain Kirk mask, widened at the eyes and painted white.

• You are harder to destabilize than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about
  yourself and you haven’t looked away.
• The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose
  to face it rather than flee from it.
• Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who
  refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
• Your psychological resilience, the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes
  unreliable, is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.

• Paramount set a new A Nightmare on Elm Street in motion in July 2026, with the Wes Craven
  estate involved.
• Craven built the original on newspaper reports of people so afraid of their own nightmares
  that they refused to fall asleep.

• The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They
  survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
• You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than
  turning away.
• That directness, the refusal to let fear fester in the dark, is Pennywise’s worst
  nightmare.
• It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear
  tastes like nothing at all.

• HBO renewed It: Welcome to Derry for a second season, with Bill Skarsgard back under the
  makeup.
• The showrunners have said season two reaches further back, to younger versions of the first
  season’s characters.

• You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present, and
  you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
• Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that
  delay faster than almost anyone.
• Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate skepticism, rather than
  dismissing it because it seems absurd, is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
• Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.

• Don Mancini is writing the next Chucky film and plans to direct it himself, aimed back at
  the scarier end.
• Brad Dourif has voiced the doll since 1988 and has said he has no plans to stop.

What Is ‘Doctor Sleep’ About?

In addition to Ferguson and McGregor, Doctor Sleep also stars Zahn McClarnon, who is best known for starring in the hit Western series, Dark Winds. Cliff Curtis, who can be seen in Avatar: The Way of Water and Avatar: Fire and Ash, also stars in Doctor Sleep as Billy Freeman. The official synopsis for the film, which earned scores of 79% from critics and 89% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, reads as follows:

“Struggling with alcoholism, Dan Torrance remains traumatized by the sinister events that occurred at the Overlook Hotel when he was a child. His hope for a peaceful existence soon becomes shattered when he meets Abra, a teen who shares his extrasensory gift of the ‘shine.’ Together, they form an unlikely alliance to battle the True Knot, a cult whose members try to feed off the shine of innocents to become immortal.”

“Struggling with alcoholism, Dan Torrance remains traumatized by the sinister events that occurred at the Overlook Hotel when he was a child. His hope for a peaceful existence soon becomes shattered when he meets Abra, a teen who shares his extrasensory gift of the ‘shine.’ Together, they form an unlikely alliance to battle the True Knot, a cult whose members try to feed off the shine of innocents to become immortal.”

Check out Doctor Sleep on VOD Platforms like Prime Video and Apple TV, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates and coverage of Rebecca Ferguson’s future projects.

Doctor Sleep