Stranger Things’ the Duffer Brothers were set to break a major Stephen King book curse, but they’ve confirmed that the curse will live on. Since he released Carrie in 1974, Stephen King has become one of the most prolific authors of the modern era, writing primarily in horror but also sci-fi and fantasy.
King has over 65 books under his belt, not including novellas and collections, with more to come. At the very least, he’s going to finish The Talisman trilogy, even though his co-author, Peter Straub, has passed away, and another Holly Gibney book. What’s more, he has many onscreen adaptations in the works.
Unfortunately, one of his bestselling books has an unfortunate curse. The Talisman has never been able to make it to the small or big screen, despite King selling the rights to Stephen Spielberg in the ‘80s. While there was hope for a TV show, the Duffer Brothers’ latest news means the curse will continue.
The TV Adaptation Of Stephen King’s The Talisman Is No Longer In The Works
The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub has been Stephen Spielberg’s white whale for the past four decades. Luckily, in 2022, news broke that Stranger Things’ Duffer Brothers partnered with Spielberg’s Amblin Television and Paramount Television Studios to produce a TV adaptation of the book with Netflix as the distributor.
Sadly, the Duffer Bros announced that their TV show was no longer moving forward, apologizing to Stephen King fans for getting their hopes up. Ross Duffer said that their involvement ended when The Talisman left Netflix. Meanwhile, Matt Duffer said, “I think it was probably naive of us to think we could break The Talisman.”
Ross further explained that he remembered reading a script during his college internship at Kennedy Marshall. “…I think it was a movie script for Talisman. So, it’s been in development forever, so I’m sorry that we were not the ones to break the curse.”
I’m personally gutted to learn that the Duffer Bros TV show isn’t going to happen, as their work on Stranger Things proved they were more than capable of handling the massive epic story that blends together fantasy, horror, and a little bit of sci-fi. However, I’m not surprised given the book’s history.
The Talisman By Stephen King Has Been Cursed Since Its Release
The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub might as well be cursed because it has been in development for around 40 years, and it’s one of the only bestselling Stephen King books that hasn’t been brought to the screen. However, it isn’t for lack of trying.
Shortly after The Talisman’s publication in 1984, Stephen Spielberg convinced Universal to pick up the rights to the book so that he could turn it into a movie. However, the Talisman movie fell through due to tensions between Stephen King and Sidney Sheinberg, Spielberg’s mentor and the president of Universal Pictures. As King explained during an interview on The Kingcast:
“For forty years, man, you know, Spielberg talked about it, and the discussions with Spielberg’s rabbi, so to speak, Sid Sheinberg, were very difficult, and they were very argumentative.
I was drinking a lot then and doing a lot of dope. And he was very, very adamant that he was going to take care of Stephen and not let Stephen, like a child, take too much on his plate. And I’m like, OK, we’re talking about a grown-up man here, a creative person. Why don’t you just step aside and let us do our thing? And it just never worked out.”
However, the attempts to bring this fantasy saga to life didn’t end with the 80s movie. Spielberg maintained his passion for bringing The Talisman to life, and he brought on an equally passionate producing partner, Kathleen Kennedy.
They hired Richard LaGravenese to write the script. A draft dated May 22, 1992, is still available online (via Stephen Bachelor). This is likely the film script that Ross Duffer referenced during their apology. Unfortunately, it didn’t come to fruition.
The next chapter in the saga was recorded by The Hollywood Reporter. Spielberg attempted to adapt The Talisman into a four-hour ABC miniseries. This time, Mick Garris drafted the script, but ABC backed out due to the production costs. Then, they turned to Universal Pictures and DreamWorks to create a film version. The project had progressed so far that they had a production schedule in place.
However, it was shelved until 2005, when TNT and DreamWorks TV decided to work together on a limited series. The companies built up the hype, and The Talisman was set for a summer 2008 premiere. Unfortunately, the production companies once again backed out because of cost.
They switched back again to a film, with Josh Boone writing a new script and an early storyboard in 2017 (via Bloody Disgusting). While this attempt didn’t pay off, Boone later achieved his dream of working with Stephen King.
The most recent and most promising attempt to bring The Talisman to the screen was Stephen Spielberg’s collaboration with the Duffer Brothers and Netflix to adapt the fantasy-horror novel into a TV show, which was announced in 2021.
Frankly, this was the perfect creative team and format for The Talisman. I would have killed to see The Duffer Brothers’ style with Straub and King’s story and Spielberg’s creativity. Sadly, it doesn’t seem that The Talisman’s curse will be broken any time soon.
Why The Talisman Is So Difficult To Adapt For The Screen
The simplest explanation for why The Talisman keeps falling through is money. In a capitalist world, production companies won’t invest in a high-budget project unless they are 100% certain that they can not only get the money back but also bring in profit. It’s sad, but our unfortunate reality.
Unfortunately, The Talisman is high fantasy, which is impossible to make well on a small budget. Jack Sawyer spends much of the story in The Territories, a medieval-inspired parallel fantasy world. For the visuals to match modern TV standards, The Talisman would need a blockbuster budget.
Until HBO started Game of Thrones in 2011, the idea of spending that much money on a TV show was absolutely unthinkable. However, it has become much more common in the past decade and a half, which is why the Duffer Brothers’ show seemed promising.
Unfortunately, as they pointed out, the project is no longer with Netflix, with whom they were partnering on The Talisman. Plus, they left Netflix for Paramount+ because the former refuses to prioritize theatrical releases. There’s pretty much no chance The Talisman TV show will reignite with the same team unless Paramount+ picks it up.
Sources: The Kingcast, Stephen Bachelor, The Hollywood Reporter, and Bloody Disgusting
