Mark Romanek, director of Never Let Me Go, is Warner Bros pick to direct Overlook Hotel, the studio's prequel to the classic Stanley Kubrick horror film The Shining.

Variety reports that Romanek, who previously wrote and directed the Robin Williams thriller One Hour Photo, has entered negotiations for the project, and will work from a script written by Glenn Mazzara, best known for his work on TV series The Shield and Walking Dead. In 2012 it was reported that Shutter Island writer Laeta Kalogridis was working on the script; that no longer appears to be the case, and Kalogridis is credited as a producer.

According to Variety, Overlook Hotel will draw on Stephen King's original prologue to the source novel, but which was not included when it was first published in 1977. The film will tell the story of the early days of the hotel, built by "robber baron" Bob T Watson, in the early years of the 20th century. King himself said the prologue "contained a number of strange events from the Overlook Hotel's earlier history", and will presumably explain the origins of the evil forces that act on Jack Torrance, the character played by Jack Nicholson in the Kubrick film.

King, who published Doctor Sleep, a sequel to The Shining, in 2013, has gone on record to say he was less than delighted at the prospect of a prequel. "Am I eager to see [it] happen? No I am not … I’m not saying I would put a stop to the project ... I have a tendency to let people develop things. I’m always curious to see what will happen. But you know what? I would be just as happy if it didn’t happen."

• How we made Stanley Kubrick's The Shining
• John Patterson: Room 237 proves you can never get too much of The Shining