‘Dracula’ may not be the only monster that will be gracing television screens next year as TNT has announced that it is now developing a drama series titled, ‘Frankenstein,’  based on the Dean Koontz Frankenstein book series.

Scribing the project will be James V. Hart and his son Jake Hart. This isn’t James Hart’s first foray into Frankenstein territory as he produced the 1994 feature film called ‘Frankenstein’ starring Anthony Hopkins and Kenneth Branagh. He’s also credited with writing the screenplay for the 1992 film ‘Dracula’ which starred Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves and wrote the Robin Williams’ vehicle ‘Hook,’ which he has credited his son for the idea for the film. Along with writing credits, Hart will executive produce the series alongside Koontz.

The TNT version of ‘Frankenstein’ will be a modern day retelling of the Mary Shelley story set in New Orleans. It follows Victor Frankenstein who is now going by the name Victor Helios.  Two hundred years after a battle in the Arctic where he thought he had killed his creation, Victor ends up in New Orleans having used science to keep himself alive all this time. Unfortunately, the creation (who himself thought Victor had died in that battle) is also in The Big Easy. Victor has engineered a new race of “bizarre” beings who are very loyal to him and when the creature learns of Victor’s existence, an epic war built on 200 years of pent up rage begins with the city of New Orleans as the battlegrounds.

If the story sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because the USA network had aired a TV movie with a similar premise back in 2004. That project actually originated with Koontz, science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson and the USA network working together in hopes to develop it into a series, but Koontz withdrew from the project over creative differences and  a year later launched his first Frankenstein book, ‘Prodigal Son,’ with his ideas that the network clashed with instead.

The five Frankenstein novels by Koontz have sold over 20 million copies and while the rights to the novels were originally envisioned for a film franchise, the change to bring it to the small screen sounds like a better decision as there are several Frankenstein movies already in production or in development (‘I, Frankenstein’ with Aaron Eckhart will be released on September 13, 2013 and Guillermo del Toro is in the process of developing his own version to just name a couple.)

TNT has not announced a date as to when the series will air but once they do, we’ll make sure you know!

 

Source: Coming Soon