Hot on the tails of Stephen King’s other books adapted into TV series’ (CBS’s ‘Under the Dome’ and ‘The Thing’s They Left Behind’ ), Bad Robot has recently gotten a series order from Hulu for King’s time-travel epic ‘11/22/63.’ The order is for a 9 episode, one hour each episode season, a welcome foray back into the land of “television” (despite it being on HULU) for Bad Robot, who started with such excellent shows as ‘Alias’ and ‘Lost.’
The title of ’11/22/63′ is quite a mouthful, and is indicative of the length and complexity of the novel itself. The story is about a divorced English teacher named Jake Epping, who stumbles on a time portal and resolves to go back in time and prevent the assassination of JFK. Arriving early in 1958, he studies Lee Harvey Oswald to devise a plan, encountering obstacles along the way in Oswald himself, a love interest he discovers in a school librarian, and the past itself, which does not want to be changed. In King’s words:
“If I ever wrote a book that cries out for long-form, event TV programming, 11/22/63 is it. I’m excited that it’s going to happen, and am looking forward to working with J.J. Abrams and the whole Bad Robot team.”
The road to the production of ’11/22/63′ has been a rocky one, with the idea originally being that it would be a movie directed by Jonathan Demme (‘Silence of the Lambs’). Unfortunately, the length of the novel (over 900 pages!) and disagreements with King over which plot points were essential to the movie led to Demme abandoning the project. Luckily, that paved the way for Bad Robot to pick up the novel and prepare it for a TV adaption, with Hulu picking up the project for distribution in the US. Here’s hoping it is another homerun for King, Hulu and Bad Robot.
Source: Screenrant, Deadline
