In what might be their first successful collaboration (after The Talisman never got off the ground), Steven Spielberg and Stephen King will be teaming up for a TV adaptation of the author’s 2009 book Under the Dome, about a New England town being surrounded by a force field. And unlike King’s previous ventures into TV (which are mostly miniseries), this is being developed as an ongoing series for Showtime. So far, King and Spielberg are the only names attached to this, and no dates have been mentioned since Spielberg acquired the rights shortly after the book came out. But now it looks like Showtime wants in on the successful genre scene by creating some competition for HBO‘s Game of Thrones and AMC‘s The Walking Dead. Hear that, guys? Showtime just realized how cool geeks are.
Here is the summary of the novel from Screen Rant:
Under the Dome revolves around the mystery of Chester’s Mill, Maine; a town that has been surrounded by an invisible force field, which completely severs the townspeople from the outside world. For many, the incident is terrifying and deadly, but for a select few -– led by Big Jim Rennie Â-– it marks a means by which to grab control of the town, and twist it to suit his murderous agenda.
And with its 1,000+ page length, it is ripe for stories to fill out an ongoing series, to say nothing of what else King might have up his sleeve. Spielberg also seems to be very, very into this story — he purchased the TV rights for it not long after it was published. Meanwhile, he’s been producing other shows for TV, including TNT‘s Falling Skies and Fox‘s Terra Nova. And now, the über-team will finally bring King’s work to the small screen in a more extended fashion than we’ve seen before.
As was mentioned above, a lot of King’s material has been adapted for television, but has usually taken the form of a miniseries. SyFy‘s Haven is based on King’s short story The Colorado Kid, but has seen obvious additions to and departures from the story itself as the series goes on. This time, it looks like the series will draw entirely from the original source material. They just need to find someone to write it. SR points out that Frank Darabont is a regular adaptor of King’s work, and since he just became available, maybe he’d be a good writer for the job.
So far, all we know is that King and Spielberg want to make this show together, but we’ll be watching out for more details as they come. It’s about time Showtime got a little geeky, no?
