The CW has been working on their TV adaptation of Clive Barker’s brilliant novel Weaveworld for a while now. It was announced back in September 2015, but earlier this year it was revealed that the original writer Jack Kenny (Warehouse 13) was no longer involved, with the network deciding to redevelop the show.
It looks like Weaveworld is still a high priority for The CW, as Deadline has announced that Josh Stolberg has been brought on to adapt Barker’s sprawling dark fantasy. Stolberg has mostly worked in the horror genre, writing the scripts for Alexandre Aja’s Piranha 3D, Sorority Row and Crawlspace (which he also directed). He also wrote Dane Cook vehicle Good Luck Chuck but we can forgive that if Weaveworld is great, and directed The Hungover Games, which is pushing it a bit.
This new version of Barker’s story is described thusly: “two ordinary people find themselves on a quest to find and protect a magical realm and ultimately to save all of humanity from an evil force.”
Those of us who have read the book know that it’s a little more complex than that, and that rich world that Barker created would certainly lend itself to a great TV show. It would have to be great, though, and it’s a hugely ambitious thing to try to pull off visually, which is apparently why it’s been such a struggle to adapt over the years. It’s certainly quite different from anything else currently on The CW, which has had great success with its superhero TV shows (Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, etc) and horror-tinged dramas like iZombie, Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries. And the brilliant Jane The Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, of course, though we can’t cover those…
“WEAVEWORLD is an epic adventure of the imagination. It begins with a carpet in which a world of rapture and enchantment is hiding; a world which comes to life, alerting the dark forces and beginning a desperate battle to preserve the last vestiges of magic which Humankind still has access to.
WEAVEWORLD is a book of visions and horrors, a story of quest, titanic struggles, of love and of hope. It is a triumph of imagination and storytelling, an adventure, a nightmare, a promise…”
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