Steven Spielberg has owned the rights to Stephen King and Peter Straub’s 1984 novel The Talisman for decades now, but despite various plans being formed and subsequently scrapped over the years, an adaptation has yet to materialise. That may soon change, because Spielberg has teamed up with Matt and Ross Duffer, the creators of Stranger Things, to adapt the novel for the small screen!
Curtis Gwinn (Stranger Things, The Walking Dead) is on board to write and showrun the series, which will be produced by Netflix, Amblin Television, and Paramount Television Studios. The Duffer brothers and Spielberg will executive produce.
The Talisman centres around Jack Sawyer, a 12-year-old boy who embarks on an exalting and terrifying quest to find the mystical Talisman that can save his dying mother. This will require him to cross not only the United States, but also the Territories, a wondrous and menacing parallel world. There, he finds a realm where the air is so sweet and clear that one can smell a radish being pulled from the ground a mile away—and where a life can be snuffed out in an instant in the continuing battle between good and evil. He also discovers “Twinners,” reflections of people who knows on earth, including his own mother. And as he makes his way westward, flipping between these two worlds, heart-stopping encounters challenge him at every turn.
Words: Samantha McLaren (@themeatispeople)
