Steven Spielberg & the Duffer Brothers to Adapt Stephen King & Peter Straub’s The Talisman

Steven Spielberg and the Duffer Brothers from Stranger Things fame are now collaborating to produce Stephen King and Peter Straub’s The Talisman. The seemingly endless flood of King’s works pushed into streaming services continues unabated with this new announcement, but with the powerhouse team assembled to make this happen, Netflix might just be tapping into a goldmine of possibilities.  

The Talisman is an award-winning 750-page monster of a novel, penned by Stephen King and Peter Straub in 1984.  It’s a coming-of-age adventure set with a backdrop of parallel universes, good vs evil, and of course, monsters and stuff. It’s early King, so he takes his time, but it’s a massive setting, and to explore each aspect, we the reader need a lot of pages. A lot of pages.  

So many pages, it’s impossible to cram into a 2-hour film and do the huge amounts of material any justice. The reason for the excitement, then, is plain and simple: Netfilx, Spielberg, Duffers (who are bringing Stranger Things writer Curtis Gwinn along for the ride) get to take 8-10 hours and use darn near everything of value. Plus, the episodic and switching back-and-forth between universe/realities in The Talisman novel will coincide nicely with a Netflix season. With that amount of star power behind the curtain, we can assume the wick of a very large firework has been lit. Sit back and get ready for the show to start.

Jack Sawyer, twelve years old, is about to begin a most fantastic journey, an exalting, terrifying quest for the mystical Talisman—the only thing that can save Jack’s dying mother. But to reach his goal, Jack must make his way not only across the breadth of the United States but also through the wondrous and menacing parallel world of the Territories.

So far, no announcements on casting. Fan theories will be trickling through Twitter, but make sure to check back with MovieNooz.com for reliable and accurate updates!  You can follow me on Twitter @AaronKatzmarek.

Image courtesy of Gallery Books