Daniel Dockery at hecklerSPRAY has an article titled, "5 Amazing Stephen King Stories That Should Be Adapted For TV."
I like this line, "And as much as the master of horror literature is everywhere, he deserves to be everywhere-er."
Unfortunately -- I don't agree with any of these. Of course, we all want Dark Tower to get off the ground, but not as an ongoing series.
Dockery's list:
- The Dark Tower
- The Running Man
- 1922
- Salem's Lot
- Danse Macabre
Now 1922, which Dockery suggests as a mini-series, would be one depressing night after another! I mean, it is not the kind of story that needs to be slowed down. I found it delightful -- but dark. Really dark!
And The Running Man ? We haven't gotten enough yet? We want to watch this play out week after week? No thank you!
The one I found most interesting was Danse Macabre.
Dockery writes:
I wasn’t very interested in horror until I read “Danse Macabre.” It wasn’t become my favorite genre until I borrowed King’s treatise on horror on film, literature, TV and radio from a friend, and after that, there was no going back. Before Danse Macabre, I considered it cool that I knew what a Halloween IV was. Now, if one of my friends doesn’t know who Richard Matheson is, I begin my research into how to kill the pod people impersonating my loved ones.
“Danse Macabre” is non-fiction, but it would be so cool to have a show that explored a different facet of horror in every episode. Stephen King could be involved as sort of the “Crypt Keeper” of it all, introducing episodes, and the rest of the running time could be spent seriously discussing and researching the mythology of such a great genre. You could interview other notable people who work in the genre, and the number of possible guests to include is endless.That would be cool! But it would be hard to draw it together out of a book that is so old.
So what King stories would make a good series? Mostly the longer stuff, because there is more material already strewn. So writers don't have to stretch the story, it's already big. For a series to be really good, it has to have characters we want to come back and visit over and over again. That's true of The Stand and IT for sure. I actually found Under The Dome a little void of likeable characters. Barbie was okay --but just okay. I am hoping for good things fromthe series.
- Under The Dome
- The Stand
- IT
- The Talisman
Books that would make a good mini-series -- I think Needful Things would be great. The novel was creepy, had great characters and came together quite nicely. I liked it a lot.
Man, spam sucks!
ReplyDeleteI think The Stand (the comics is almost a tv series), Needful Things or Long Walk(mini-series) could be a great choices
I believe someone did try to get Steve to be a crypt keeper like host in the 80s, I'm so glad he never did that.
ReplyDeleteI agree the Talisman would be great.
I wish they would remake Running Man more like the book, that would be awesome.
David, did you ever watch Kingdom Hospital?
It's been on my shelf for years and I've never put it in.
-mike
I THINK I saw Kingdom Hospital. If it is about the old man who gets younger. It did not hold my interest.
ReplyDeleteThat's Golden Years.
DeleteKingdom Hospital was Steve's show based on a Lars von Trier show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WETUq2ooOs8
1922 would make an excellent movie. It probably wouldn't do well in the theaters because it is so dark while lacking a supernatural element.
ReplyDeleteA movie based on 1922 would probably turn out much like Apt Pupil. I thought that was an excellent movie which had not a single light moment or laugh line. None of the characters were redeemed in the end.
1922 is a similar tale. It's all ugly, tragic, and without redemption for anyone. I get the impression that the average movie goer wants to leave the theater uplifted by the experience.
Pennywise -- you are so right! Spam does suck.
ReplyDeleteThankfully, Blogger gives sites admin's a delete button.
I think King works best in miniseries format believe it or not. Though I think Haven proves that a SK TV series isn't all it's cracked up to be.
ReplyDeleteI do like the idea of Danse Macabre as continuing documentary series, although King's input may be minimal after a short time. Technically, TCM made this documentary Stephen King's world of horror that King calls a continuation of Danse Macabre.
ChrisC
Here's the thing; the mini-series is not what it once was.
ReplyDeleteBack in the 80's and 90's, a "mini-series" was reserved for special format. It aired in the movie time-slot, and almost exclusively on broadcast networks that meant you couldn't include anything that would rate it higher than PG, or at worst, a lite PG-13. Because it was in the movie time-slot, each episode was usually aired over two hours, which isn't all that bad, but what IS bad is that it was usually given a maximum of four nights to air on. Producers at the time figured that if it was any longer, people wouldn't bother finishing.
Nowadays, even on broadcast TV but even moreso on cable and pay TV, eight, ten, even twelve-hour "event" series are commonplace. Each episode is an hour, and it's treated like a season of television. They're usually given fairly big budgets because they're "tentpole" series expected to increase viewership for a sweeps or summer period.
In this environment, a 12-hour maxi-series based on The Stand, The Talisman or It would work incredibly well.
It's already happening on Hulu with 11/22/63. I can only imagine what Netflix, Amazon or a cable/pay TV channel like HBO, Starz, Showtime or Cinemax could do with one or more of the others I mentioned.
Now, as for The Dark Tower...we're talking about a sprawling epic that takes place over seven books that get progressively longer. A movie based on The Gunslinger or The Drawing of the Three might work, but the later books in the series? They'd have to cut so much it wouldn't be worth it to film what was left. I really think that treating The Dark Tower as an annual "maxi-series" (in other words, a TV series) is really the only way it will work to any real satisfaction.