Stephen King adaptations have been hot TV property for much of the last decade. From Castle Rock to 11.22.63, from Mr. Mercedes to this October’s It: Welcome to Derry, where King’s novels and short stories once made for notoriously terrible television, they’re now very often essential viewing. OK, there’s still a The Institute here and there, but with the incredible Mike Flanagan working on a series based on Carrie, and maintaining that he’s developing The Dark Tower, things for King fans remain pretty great. But we’re never satisfied, so we’ve pulled together all the Stephen King stories we still want to see adapted as premium TV series.
While cinematic outings could be astonishing hits (Carrie, The Shining, Stand By Me, Misery, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile), unbearable misses (Silver Bullet, Needful Things, Maximum Overdrive, The Mangler, Secret Window, Dreamcatcher), or just perfect nonsense (The Running Man, Pet Sematary, Creepshow), TV adaptations often made for cringy viewing. If you’ve suffered through 1994’s The Stand or 1995’s The Langoliers, you’ve seen bad things, but they’re nothing compared to 2013’s Under the Dome. I have a massive soft spot for 2004’s lunatic Kingdom Hospital (although this was King’s reinterpretation of a Danish show by Lars von Trier), and adored the light-hearted first four seasons of Haven (except that was barely based on The Colorado Kid in the first place), but it’s only in the last ten or so years that King’s work has made for prestige TV.
Recently we’ve had Brendan Gleeson and Justine Lupe in Mr. Mercedes, (unfortunately) James Franco and Sarah Gadon in 11.22.63, Sissy Spacek and Lizzy Caplan in Castle Rock, and Jason Bateman and Cynthia Erivo in The Outsider, and they’ve all been incredible.
Meanwhile Mike Flanagan, responsible for Netflix’s extraordinary run of one-and-done horror series like Midnight Mass and The Fall of the House of Usher, is seemingly on a one-man mission to adapt all of Stephen King. He’s already made movies of Gerald’s Game (superb but very tough viewing), Doctor Sleep (a somewhat muddled Shining sequel, struggling under its own attempts to evoke Kubrick), and the critically acclaimed The Life of Chuck, and keeps promising he’s about to make The Dark Tower. What he’s definitely doing next is a TV version of Carrie, due in 2026, and while it will almost certainly be excellent (he’s yet to have a TV show that isn’t), it’s surely the least essential work to adapt, given Brian De Palma’s 1976 version is already one of the greatest movies ever made.
So what should have been a bigger priority? Which are the Stephen King stories that we want to see as prestige TV? Here’s our top five.
Jerusalem’s Lot
While I’m very much looking forward to It: Welcome to Derry, I confess to being a bit disappointed that the title gained that preceding “It” at a certain point during its development. I had really been hoping for a more general exploration of the town that was also the setting for Insomnia, Pet Sematary, The Tommyknockers, Bag of Bones (partly) and so many other stories. Like Castle Rock, I was expecting a more general flavor, a town with the potential for so many other supernatural events. Instead, we’re getting four planned seasons, each set 27 years earlier than the events in the most recent movies, for each of Pennywise’s previous feasting sessions. So, given that role I’d hoped for isn’t being fulfilled, I propose Jerusalem’s Lot.
Salem’s Lot, as the locals call it, is a place best known for the book and multiple adaptations of its vampire story, most recently HBO Max’s very poor effort last year. But it’s also had a prequel and a sequel set in town in the form of short stories Jerusalem’s Lot (which was the basis for Chapelwaite) and One for the Road. It also gets mentioned in so many other books like The Shining, The Dead Zone, Dolores Claiborne and even multiple Dark Tower books. The point is, it’s a place ripe for an anthology show, and while it would clearly have to center on vampires, it wouldn’t need to be only that. The main book had a wealth of characters, certainly enough to support a few seasons of development, and it’d be great to see a 2020s take on the tale. Also, in my ultimate King TV Universe (KTU), it would be an excellent hub show for characters from other outings to pass through.
Needful Things
Honestly, I can’t think of a more perfect Stephen King novel to turn into television. Well, apart from The Dead Zone, but someone already did that. Needful Things tells the tale of a shopkeeper, Leland Gaunt, who moves to Castle Rock to open his peculiar boutique of antiques and obscurities. He’s got something in stock that’s just perfect for every person in town. Strangely, however, Gaunt doesn’t way money as payment, but instead peculiar favors.
Like so many of King’s books, Needful Things is less about the Bogey Man and his Evil Shop, and much more about a town of characters and their relationships in the face of turmoil. His Castle Rock books always excel in this way, creating characters to deeply love and viscerally loathe, and then when events unfurl, they really matter. And that’s partly why it made for such an awful movie, despite starring Ed Harris as the adored (in the novels) sheriff Alan Pangborn. (The best thing about that film is that it was directed by Fraser C. Heston, who played the baby Moses in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments.) But it’s also why it would work so well as a TV show.
Each week we can focus on a different character, their interaction with Gaunt, the implications of their “purchase,” and how it affects their relationships with everyone else. As his evil machinations unfold, the season builds up more and more calamity, with ever more people being drawn into the mire. As it goes on, we then get to watch the band of those looking to fight back, to combat their nemesis, and should it all click into place as gloriously as I think it could, you need not have Gaunt flee the town but rather stay on with a new plan.
The Eyes of the Dragon
This would be such an interesting series to make, firstly because it’s King’s first foray into hardcore fantasy writing, and secondly because many characters appear in vaguely different guises in the other novels. There’s a King Roland of Delain (both Dark Tower references), an evil wizard called Flagg (The Stand and Dark Tower), and the witch Rhiannon (Wizards and Glass). This epic fantasy tale would make so much sense in a post-Game of Thrones world, especially when Amazon keeps trying to adapt wildly too big stories like Wheel of Time–this is just one novel, albeit an enormous one.
There have been three failed attempts to adapt this novel, starting in the late ’90s with a movie that never reached production, followed by an abandoned 2012 attempt by Syfy, and an equally unsuccessful attempt by Hulu in 2019. It seems to come down to budget each time, but that’s not a concern for the likes of Amazon or Apple TV–it feels like an odd miss not to grab it.
Rose Madder
I feel like Rose Madder would have been such a disastrous book for any TV network to try to develop at any point in the past, but perhaps now is the right moment. This story of a physically abused woman’s escape from her cop husband is gut-wrenching and incredibly powerful, then made far more complex by its eventual twisting into magical realism. It’s fascinating that despite every short story, lengthy answerphone message and dropped Post-It Note of King’s seemingly getting made into a movie, no one’s touched Rose Madder in the 30 years since it published. Apparently HBO optioned it in 1996 for a TV movie, and in 2011 it was reported that a script had been written and was due to be made by Grosvenor Park, but that never happened either. And good, because there’s far too much here for a film—such an adaptation could only be crass in trying to condense the establishing of Rose’s need to escape and the real danger she’s in with a story that eventually involves magical paintings and symbolic metamorphosis.
But as a mini-series, this could be incredible. The time feels very right for a story that explores police violence, and Rose’s story contains so much hope and beauty in the face of violence and fear. With care, precision, and enough time, the peculiarities of this story would have room to play out as the spectacular metaphor they are. I say HBO should give it another go.
Joyland
One of my all-time favorite Stephen King novels (my favorite, since you asked, is Insomnia, but no one should ever try to make that into a TV show!) is Joyland, a 2013 book written by King for the pulp crime publisher Titan Books. As such, and I won’t say either way, you’re never sure if it’s a straight crime story or whether it will have a supernatural twist.
To me this feels like perfect Mike Flanagan material. He’s proven he can do the goriest horror, and the lightest positivity, but most of all, he’s proven he has a knack for stories that really care about their characters. This is a story of a young guy getting a summer job at a fairground, then staying on during its closed winter season to investigate a series of murders. There’s no potential for a second season here, but this book is so calm and thoughtful, with a great mystery at its core, that it’d make for a compelling mini-series.
The only attempt to adapt it was by Freeform in 2018, but nothing’s ever come of it. And good, because no, not Freeform. Netflix for this one I reckon.
