Even before Stephen King’s new novel ‘11/22/63’ has hit the stores, it’s already been optioned to be made into a movie. And none other than Jonathan Demme will be at the helm of the whole process.

Jonathan Demme is best known for directing such movies as ‘Philadelphia‘, ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ and ‘Silence of the Lambs’. This time he has optioned the rights to ‘11/22/63’ where he plans to write, direct and produce the film. Although the project doesn’t have a distributer or financing, Demme is planning to start production in the fall of 2012. Stephen King is said to serve as executive producer.

If the date of King’s new novel seems familiar, it’s the date that President John F. Kennedy was shot. The story centers on that event and the exploits of an English teacher who decides to go back in time to prevent the assassination. But with all Stephen King’s novels, storylines are never this simple. Reviews of the novel have been exemplary and a lot of praise and buzz has been directed toward this 1000+ page book. Some are even saying that this may be the best King has ever written.

The official plot of the book from King’s website is below. And if that doesn’t whet your interest, you can also read an excerpt of the book here.  ‘11/22/63’ will be in bookstores on November 8.

“If you had the chance to change the course of history, would you? Would the consequences be worth it?

Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.

Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.”