King of horror scares again
We’ve talked frequently about the importance of brands in this golden age of drama. A while ago we also discussed Stephen King’s appeal to the film and TV business.
So it was no huge surprise this week when Viacom-owned cable network Spike greenlit a series adaptation of the horror-meister’s 1980 novella The Mist. The show is scheduled to go into production in the summer and will air in 2017.
Those of you who watch a little too much film and TV will know that The Mist also had an outing as a movie in 2007. That version was directed by Frank Darabont (The Walking Dead) and produced by Dimension, which is also behind the TV version.
The novella (and film) tells the story of a small town in Maine that gets shrouded in a Mist that conceals a group of murderous monsters. The film was okay, without being spectacular, so a little more effort will need to be taken to turn this into a hit.
Interestingly, the Spike version of The Mist is being adapted by Danish writer Christian Torpe, whose previous credits include Rita. This is another indicator of the high regard in which Nordic talent is now held.
Sharon Levy, Spike’s head of original series, said: “Christian and the entire team at TWC-Dimension TV have crafted the framework for a compelling and distinctive series that will resonate with Spike’s expanding audience.”
Spike will be hoping this show goes smoothly. Last year, the network announced its intention to move more aggressively into scripted TV – but since then it has encountered a couple of bumps in the road.
First, it pulled the plug on a Jerry Bruckheimer drama called Harvest, which it had given a straight-to-series order. Then, a couple weeks ago, it suspended production on Red Mars, another straight-to-series order based on Kim Stanley Robinson’s acclaimed science-fiction trilogy.
With regard to that project, Spike said in a statement: “We will continue to develop Red Mars with (producer) Skydance. The Red Mars trilogy is one of the most beloved modern science-fiction properties, in part because of its tremendous scope and ambition. We are pausing to ensure we get the script right and to deliver fans what they want – a fantastic show that fully captures the spirit of these wonderful books.”
Another novelist in high demand by the TV and film business is Neil Gaiman, whose American Gods is currently in production for Starz. This week, The Guardian reported that another Gaiman project, Good Omens (co-written in 1990 with Terry Pratchett), is also being adapted as a limited TV series.
This one follows an angel, Aziraphale, and a demon, Crowley, as they try and prevent the end of the world because they’ve grown accustomed to the comfort of Earth. Apparently, Monty Python’s Terry Jones and Gavin Scott looked at making a TV series based on Good Omens in 2011, but that project was later scrapped. If this one goes ahead as planned, it will be adapted by Gaiman. According to The Guardian, Gaiman decided to adapt the book after reading a posthumous letter from Pratchett asking him to do so.
Perhaps not surprisingly, US cable network AMC has announced there will be a third season of Fear The Walking Dead, consisting of 16 episodes. The news follows the successful launch of season two, which attracted an impressive 8.8 million viewers in Live+3 ratings.
“What Dave Erickson and Robert Kirkman have invented in Fear The Walking Dead is to be applauded,” said Charlie Collier, president of AMC, SundanceTV and AMC Studios. “Watching Los Angeles crumble through the eyes of our characters and seeing each make decisions and try to figure out the rules of their new world – it’s fresh, eerie and compelling and we’re all in for the ride. We thank the fans for embracing this mad world and look forward to sailing far into the future.”
As the above titles demonstrate, horror/fantasy is still very much in demand. Another illustration of this is Hulu’s decision to acquire the exclusive rights to Freakish from AwesomenessTV. Freakish was created by Beth Szymkowski and is set after a meltdown at chemical plant. It sees a group of highschoolers battle against the predatory mutant freaks that have taken over their small town as a result of the accident. The 10-episode first season is in production and is being lined up for 2017 transmission.
There are also reports this week that Lionsgate is preparing a drama for Amazon based on the songs of Bob Dylan. Entitled Time Out of Mind, the project will be headed by writer-director Josh Wakely – who has secured a rights deal that gives him access to Dylan’s vast music catalogue. The idea is that the show will be inspired by characters and themes within Dylan’s work. The news continues the trend towards scripted series based on musical subjects, discussed here, with Amazon itself also developing a series about legendary band The Grateful Dead.
Among other stories doing the rounds this week, there are reports that CBS’s new Star Trek series will be a seasonal anthology. It’s not clear exactly what that means in practice. Other seasonal anthologies shed their cast each season but it’s hard to imagine a show that jettisons the entire USS Enterprise crew after every season. Possibly the anthology nature of the series will relate to the challenges faced by the crew. So star names could be brought into new adventures as non-recurring characters, while the Enterprise cohort is kept broadly the same each season.
On the international distribution front, Denmark’s DR has sold its financial crime series Follow the Money to France Televisions. The show has already been sold to BBC4 UK, CBC Canada and SBS Australia. Other DR-distributed dramas to have secured sales in the wake of the recent MipTV market include SF Film’s crime drama Norskov, acquired by on-demand platform Walter Presents, and Happy End’s Splitting Up Together, which was licensed to NRK Norway.
Family drama The Legacy, which was explored in detail at C21’s Drama Summit at the end of last year, was also sold to SBS. In terms of shows to look out for, TV2 Denmark’s DNA should be a major event, since it has been created by Torleif Hoppe of The Killing fame.
tagged in: Amazon, AMC, AwesomenessTV, CBS, Charlie Collier, Fear The Walking Dead, Freakish, Good Omens, Hulu, Josh Wakely, Lionsgate, Neil Gaiman, Spike, Star Trek, Starz, Stephen King, The Mist, Time Out of Mind