Originally published January 17, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
Last year it was announced that Spike TV had given a series order to a small screen adaptation of Stephen King’s The Mist, with is being written and executive produced by Christian Torpe.
Speaking to TV Guide at the Television Critics Association winter press tour, Torpe has revealed that the show won’t be a straight-up adaptation of King’s celebrated horror short, but rather a “reimagining” similar to that of the Fargo series.
“Let’s call it a reimagination,” said Torpe. “Internally, we talk about it as doing the Fargo approach, where the movie and the TV show is the same, but it’s different. It’s like a weird, twisted cousin to the original source material. Fans of the movie and of the book and of Mr. King’s work will certainly see elements from it. … We also, in order to develop it for TV and turn it into an ongoing series, took our own little detours here and there.”
Torpe also revealed that the show will likely follow the darker ending of the 2007 Frank Darabont movie, as opposed to King’s original ending:
“I personally love Mr. [Frank Darabont’s] ending. I thought it was a stroke of genius. We are playing around in that territory and we also know, of course, Mr. King’s ending. And I know Mr. King actually preferred Darabont’s ending And so I think we came up with our own spin on a very original and surprising ending.”
TV Line also offered up some details on the plot, posting that: “There will be multiple scattered groups struggling to survive the Mist. Alyssa Sutherland plays a mother who gets trapped in a mall with her daughter and her daughter’s rapist; Morgan Spector plays the father of Sutherland’s daughter, who is stuck in a different location from the rest of his family; Okezie Morro plays a man with amnesia struggling to find allies; and Frances Conroy plays a woman whose ideas regarding the origin of the monstrous Mist will lead to great conflict within her small community of survivors.”
The Mist is set to premiere later this year.
