Director’s Statement – Daniel Thron

James Cole and I shot our Dollar Baby decades ago, but it was the most formative film experience I could have had – as a teenager living in a small town, I never would have thought it possible to get the okay to make a Stephen King short, but Jim showed us both that there’s nothing lost in trying, and I’ve tried to keep that mindset ever since. It was on Last Rung that my love of filmmaking went from theoretical to real-world, and that simple fact changed the course of my life.

I bring some piece of this little movie with me to everything I’ve worked on since. It was there I learned what kind of stories I want to tell, what kind of folks I love to work with, and how, if you know those things, there’s no creative challenge that can’t be overcome. I’m incredibly grateful to Jim – we are friends and creative partners to this day – and to King himself for that amazing opportunity.