Stephen King has been one of the most prolific horror authors for decades now, and his works have spawned countless film and television adaptations. Some of the most iconic horror films of all time, such as It and The Shining, exist solely because of his novels.
While some of the author’s most iconic adaptations are from past decades, 2025 has been a huge year for King, as four of his stories have been given theatrical releases this year. Two of those projects, The Long Walk, based on a King novella, and a new attempt at The Running Man, have yet to come out.
The other two films have already been released in theaters, and while both of them found their success, one managed to become a fairly unexpected runaway hit. That movie has just been released on streaming, finally available for people who weren’t able to catch it in theaters for whatever reason.
The Monkey Is Now Streaming On Hulu After A Successful Theatrical Release
The Monkey, based on a short story published in 1980, has just been released on Hulu, finally hitting a streaming service after its theatrical release in February. Hulu has a number of plans available, with a basic, ad-supported subscription available for $9.99 a month, as well as an ad-free version that costs $18.99 per month.
The Monkey did extremely well in its theatrical release, grossing nearly $69 million worldwide on a budget of just around $10 million. Horror movies have generally done quite well this year, and The Monkey was no exception. While it didn’t put up numbers like Sinners, its very low budget allowed for the movie to make its money back and much more.
The primary reason for the movie’s success was its reception, as The Monkey‘s critical reviews were pretty great across the board. It also clearly managed to be a decent hit with audiences, with solid word-of-mouth that allowed the movie to keep earning a decent chunk of money week over week, eventually building up to unambiguous hit status.
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, The Monkey earned a 78% critic score based on 289 reviews, though it only received a 56% audience score on the platform.
The other Stephen King film to release this year was The Life of Chuck, starring Tom Hiddleston, which may come as a surprise to many people considering how different it seems from the rest of his work. That movie was also great, but, unfortunately, it didn’t manage to do nearly as well as The Monkey.
As Stephen King adaptations continue to be very popular, there are plenty of reasons to give this film a watch. Horror-comedies aren’t all that rare these days, but The Monkey managed to toe the line between the two very well, offering some true horror alongside some very clever writing.
