Stephen King's 'Cell' to Hit the Small Screen Instead
Filed under: Horror, Newsstand
(Remember wayyy back when Eli Roth was attached to direct a film based on Stephen King's Cell? Yeah, well, that obviously didn't happen, and now word has it those Weinstein boys have decided to take the property to the small screen instead. Here's Peter Hall reporting for Horror Squad) Fangoria got out word today from the Fantasia Film Festival that Stephen King's Cell is no longer destined for the silver screen. Instead the novel will be reborn as a four hour TV mini-series to be scripted by John Harrison. Details are rather sparse at this stage, but Harrison tells Fango his take on the material will be closer to a classic creeper like Village of the Damned (I hope Harrison is referring to the original and not the languid John Carpenter remake) than an all out zombie movie.
If you recall Eli Roth was long attached to a film adaptation of King's novel about a cell phone pulse that scrambles the inner workings of any poor sap that hears it, converting them instantly into a murderous member of a new society.
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Personally I think this is great news. I still remember my reaction to the original Roth attachment and how he envisioned the whole thing as a global blood bath. King's novel certainly has its share of apocalyptic waves of bloodshed, but its core is an intimate story of a band of survivors in a world turned upside-down, which is something I never pegged Roth as a being that interested in. I'm glad to hear that Cell has expanded its exhibition (no way that book should have been crammed into an opening weekend pleasing 100 minutes, anyway) while contracting its scope closer to that of King's original vision.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-14-2009 @ 3:55PM
Alex said...
This is not good news. I would much prefer a fast, brutal 100 minutes to the prime-time TV safe version this is now bound to become.
TV adaptations of King's books are faithful but toothless at best (The Stand), unintentionally campy and unwatchable at worst (The Langoliers, The Tommyknockers). The only shot Cell had at being good was a theatrical, R-rated treatment. Unless HBO picks it up and it can be as brutal as it needs to be, as well as a decent director working on it (like, just putting it out there, the director of Let the Right One In), it's going to be another wasted opportunity.
I don't think Roth was the best guy for the job but he's got the chops to direct a truly great horror film, provided that he doesn't write it. Still, I'd rather see his version of Cell than another boring, sanitized miniseries.
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7-14-2009 @ 4:07PM
Tom said...
I've been saying for a little while now that this material would be much better suited for a miniseries... perhaps the Weinsteins are making one of their few good decisions (to be fair, I loved most of their productions I've seen from while they were still with Miramax).
Either way, Eli Roth not directing something is always great news.
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7-14-2009 @ 4:12PM
Marc said...
Good to know!! I'm also glad it won't make it to the big screen mainly because of the amount of content in the book. This should be the right direction since 90-120 minute run would compromise the quality of the story.
Maybe its just me but I think that as great as King's novels are they are tough to translate to film mainly because he has sooo much content in each book and some of the film adaptations seem awkward and don't succeed because so much is stripped away from the core.
The one thing about the book that I never really bought into was the progression and evolution of the "flocks" and couldn't see the ending playing out on film in a convincing manner. But we'll see.
Here's hoping they can include all the right content while keeping the TV censors at bay.
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7-14-2009 @ 4:57PM
Nick said...
I think this is good news. Stephen King is the best anyway! And his horror is what we want, I translated this new into russian at http://www.kingtales.ru/content/view/1256/40/.
You are doing very good when tell us about Stephen. Thank you!
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7-14-2009 @ 5:14PM
MCW said...
Good, cause the book sucks... it's incredibly boring. Even Pulse did the idea better (They even made 3 of those!).
It's better suited to TV, and it's definitely not worthy of a "big movie" budget.
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9-26-2009 @ 5:18PM
Paul said...
At least we still have HOME DELIVERY from Nightmares and Dreamscapes to be directed by Ryuhei Kitamura (The Midnight Meat Train). Zombies and King... an isolated island... it's a no-brainer!
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10-15-2009 @ 11:06PM
Ben said...
i'm am actually very excited to know that eli roth is not directing the movie, because although the movie is pretty much a "zombie" movie", he does tend to add more than enough blood and gore in all of his movies.
I am also excited to hear that the story is going to made into a miniseries, because miniseries means that they will be able to make the movie as long as it should be in order to put all of the information from the book into the show.
And one more thing, i hope that they don't mess this up, because in my opinion Cell was one of Stephen King's best novels of all time, I also hope that they use good actors and actresses instead of all of the poor saps that they use in the really bad miniseries. Sorry about all the criticism, i just really like this book.
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