Television has done Stephen King miniseries before. I recall watching The Stand in its entirety. I could have sworn said he was going to retire from the business several years ago, yet he still keeps writing.Mike Harrison (who wrote and directed the Sci Fi Channel's Dune miniseries) is working on a four-hour miniseries of the horror novel Cell for the Weinstein Company. Harrison has worked with King's material before on the movies Creepshow and Tales from the Darkside: the Movie.
Having never read Cell, it's difficult to have an opinion over whether this will evolve into a quality miniseries. There is some talent behind the show, so that's encouraging.
My first question is which channel would likely get to broadcast it? My first instinct is SyFy, since Harrison has a history with them, but this could go network. I eliminate the Horror Channel from consideration because they don't have as much exposure as the others.
For those who have read the book, what do you think? Would it be a good miniseries?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-14-2009 @ 5:23PM
mkiatotx said...
Cell has a lot of blood and gore. It would make a good mini-series (I'm biased tho - I happen to love S King!) but I hope it doesn't go network. It really needs to be on cable to do it justice.
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7-14-2009 @ 5:26PM
laura said...
Its a really amazing book, about a pulse going out over cell phones and turning anyone who at the time was on one, or gets on one, into raving lunatics bent on destroying those who arent like them. Its King basically telling all the people who are slaves to their cell phones and other technology that they are all of one mind, and that mind will destroy society eventually.
I hope it comes to regular network, because besides BSG SyFy is flat terrible with movies.
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7-14-2009 @ 5:40PM
0megapart!cle said...
Scifi is pretty good with their event miniseries (Taken, Dune, Alice (hopefully))
I don't this would turn into one of their Saturday night movies.
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7-14-2009 @ 5:48PM
ac said...
Considering it was originally supposed to be made by Eli Roth into a movie (the guy that made the Hostel movies) I'm glad its a mini-series now. As long as it focuses mainly on the events after the pulse like book does and not on the pulse itself. Roth's vision was focus on the pulse (when everyone turns into the zombies) and show it all over the world happening, not from the main character's point of view like the book.
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7-14-2009 @ 5:51PM
JBob said...
Ugh, what was the last King TV movie? Desperation? Ya... every King TV movie is horrible, except for The Stand, and it wasnt from lack of trying, so often im watching it and i just think "jeez this SUCH a tv movie!"
Anyways... the ending to cell was dumb anyways, call me when the dark tower series fires up. (speaking of dumb endings, boy were there a few bad decisions on king's part down the stretch)
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7-14-2009 @ 5:59PM
Eirik said...
I read Cell when it came out. It starts out almost from the first page as a zombie movie with a twist, sorta like "28 Days Later", where the people aren't really dead but rather sick in some manner. After a while, the story changes from a traditional zombie style movie to something stranger.
I suppose that it could work as a miniseries, but I'm doubtful. I think this could be a bit like "The Langoliers" which had enough material for a good movie, but was stretched over two nights.
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7-14-2009 @ 7:16PM
Paul said...
I am actually looking forward to it more as a moniseries that I was a full fledged movie.
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7-15-2009 @ 12:02AM
John said...
It's a metaphor for a crap movie.
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7-15-2009 @ 2:57AM
David said...
Four hours? Really?? This could be a two hour made-for-TV-movie, easily. There's just not that much detail that needs to be included. Get through the first half of the book in the first 40 minutes of the movie and you've got more than enough time to get into the interesting meat of the story and give it a satisfying, messed up conclusion.
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7-15-2009 @ 9:22AM
Kelly said...
"Cell" is a short book by Stephen King standards so it will probably translate well to tv. But I bet it will focus on the easy zombie plot and won't convey the political message of the book--that terrorism can turn survivors into monsters. Consider me a normie!
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7-15-2009 @ 9:49AM
Jim said...
I'm optimistic that this series will turn out well. That being said, I hope, like another commenter stated, that the series gets to a cable channel. I would add that it gets to a cable channel that isn't burdened with 5 minutes worth of commercials every 10 minutes.
I think the story is contemporary enough that it might have more success than Desperation did.
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7-15-2009 @ 1:47PM
Midnight13 said...
Forget SyFY, give it to FX
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