Stephen King’s ‘The Mist’ Inspires A New TV Series
Just because aStephen Kingstory has been adapted in one medium doesn’t make it off-limits for another, especially in the peak TV year of 2015.The Shiningis the most obvious example of a successful film that was mounted on television, and now there’s a development effort to createThe Mistas a TV series.
But this doesn’t sound like a script re-adaptation of the novella. Rather,The MistTV series may be something more inspired by the original story than directly based on it, and therefore a story (or set of stories) that can sit alongside Frank Darabont’s excellent film.
Deadlinesays that Dimension Television, part of The Weinstein Company, is developingThe MistTV series, with the blessing of Stephen King and a script fromChristian Torpe.
Here’s how the site describes the show, with this wording probably coming straight from the producers:
The series will tell an original story about a seemingly innocuous mist that seeps into a small town but contains limitless havoc. From psychological terrors to otherworldly creatures, the mist causes the town residents' darkest demons to appear forcing them to battle the supernatural event and, more importantly, each other.
I think even big fans of the movie would agree that there are other stories hiding inThe Mist, waiting to be told. In a television landscape featuring twoWalking DeadTV shows and other popular horror, mystery and thriller series, this is almost a no-brainer. That seems to be what Bob Weinstein is promising when he says,
The terror and drama in Stephen King’s novella are so vast that we felt serialized television is the best place to explore them in greater depth. With this show, Christian has created a fascinating band of characters and a story with infinite scares.
The great thing is that, the way TV is now, we don’t even have to assume that the series will shy away from the divisive (by which I mean excellent) gut-punch ending of Darabont’s film. Television stories tend to be even more ruthless than mainstream horror films at this point, so perhapsThe Mistwill be an appropriately freaky, occasionally troubling series. (Sadly, it probably won’t ever be in black and white.)
We don’t have any info on when a pilot forThe Mistmight shoot.
Here’s the trailer for Darabont’s film, followed by the director talking about that black and white version of the film that was on the special edition DVD.
