If you’re like us, you saw the teaser trailer for Hulu’s Castle Rock and were so excited that it took you a little while to realise that you knew basically nothing about it. So…it’s Stephen King, it’s JJ Abrams, it’s Bad Robot, it’s Hulu…but what is it?
Thankfully, Hulu has been kind enough to give us a little bit of information about what exactly Castle Rock will offer us.
First of all, it’s 10 episodes, and it’s written by Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason, the creative duo behind the critically acclaimed drama Manhattan, which told the story of the men and women working on the Manhattan project in New Mexico.
Second, the teaser trailer highlighted a lot of the best-known stories and characters set in King’s little nightmare town, and while it won’t be retelling those stories exactly, there’s a reason why they’ve been mentioned…Well, here’s the pitch from the press release.
“A psychological-horror series set in the Stephen King multiverse, Castle Rock combines the mythological scale and intimate character storytelling of King’s best-loved works, weaving an epic saga of darkness and light, played out on a few square miles of Maine woodland. The fictional Maine town of Castle Rock has figured prominently in King’s literary career: Cujo, The Dark Half, IT and Needful Things, as well as novella The Body and numerous short stories such as Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption are either set there or contain references to Castle Rock. Castle Rock is an original suspense/thriller — a first-of-its-kind reimagining that explores the themes and worlds uniting the entire King canon, while brushing up against some of his most iconic and beloved stories.”
We’d never thought of King’s world as a “multiverse” exactly, though we guess that label works. We’re definitely interested to see exactly how close it brushes up against the classics. Will it be an occasional glimpse of “PENNYWISE LIVES!” graffiti, or a haunted local mentioning a new antique shop that’s opened up, or someone reading a Paul Sheldon or George Stark novel? Or will we actually see these characters in the flesh?
Production will begin “this year” so we’re obviously not expecting this until at least 2018, but goddammit, we are excited about this.
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