Jason Clarke says Stephen King is totally cool with that huge Pet Sematary change

Last year, Stephen King said he takes a laid back attitude toward adaptations (film or TV, it don't matter) of his works. Even if the end result isn't very good, he's always excited to see what other people come up with when interpreting his initial literary vision.

**The following contains major plot spoilers for Pet Sematary—both the original book and upcoming film adaptation!**

The same applies to the upcoming remake of Pet Sematary, which will be making one very big change from the 1983 source material of the same name. As revealed in the most recent trailer, the plot is killing off and resurrecting Louis Creed's daughter, Ellie (Jeté Laurence), instead of his son, Gage (Hugo and Lucas Lavoie). This irked many fans of the novel — but not its writer, no, sir.

“The reward will come," Jason Clarke, who plays Creed, told Flickering Myth. "People who are upset will hopefully see the benefit of it. But a lot of people didn’t have an issue. Stephen King didn’t have an issue with it.”

Louis' life begins to spiral out of control and into the world of the supernatural when he and his family move to Maine for Louis' new job as a university doctor. Amy Seimetz plays his wife, Rachel, who has her own bad history with death.

After the Creed family cat, Winston Churchill, is run over in the road, their new neighbor, Jud Crandall (John Lithgow), introduces Louis to a magical burial ground in the woods behind the Creed household. The ancient Earth revives the cat, which comes back — only now it's a bit different and reeking of death. When Ellie is run over like Church, Louis, beside himself with grief, cannot help it and buries her in the mystical ground with horrific and bloody results. 

“It’s pretty easy to justify [the change]," Clarke added of the plot change. "You can’t play that movie with a three-year-old boy. You end up with a doll or some animated thing. So you’re going to get a much deeper, richer story by swapping for a seven-year-old or nine-year-old girl."

Pet Sematary picks itself up out of the dirt and into theaters April 5. Before then, it will enjoy its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas on March 17.