TV
“Cape Fear” Series From Nick Antosca, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese To Take Unconventional Approach
In 1991, director Martin Scorsese remade 1962’s Cape Fear, based on the 1957 novel The Executioners by John D. MacDonald, for Steven Spielberg‘s Amblin Entertainment. It appears they’re returning to the IP: Deadline reports that Scorsese and Spielberg have teamed with “Channel Zero” creator Nick Antosca for a new series that’ll take an unconventional approach.
“Cape Fear” marks the first ever TV collaboration for Scorsese and Spielberg, who are executive producing the project from creator, executive producer and showrunner Nick Antosca (“Brand New Cherry Flavor,” Antlers).
The series is described as a “a tense, contemporary thriller that examines America’s obsession with true crime in the 21st century. In it, a storm is coming for a pair of married attorneys when an infamous killer from their past gets released after years in prison.”
In every iteration of Cape Fear so far, the plot sees a lawyer’s family tormented by the criminal he helped put in prison.
The 1962 adaptation of MacDonald’s novel was helmed by J. Lee Thompson and starred Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum and Polly Bergen. It was heavily influenced by Alfred Hitchcock. Scorsese’s 1991 feature starred Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte and Jessica Lange, with appearances from original stars Peck and Mitchum.
Deadline also shares that “Antosca has reportedly been obsessed with both Cape Fear movies since childhood and approached Universal about adapting the property through UCP where he has been based for the past seven years.”
With Scorsese, Spielberg, and Antosca behind it, it’s no surprise that “Cape Fear” is reportedly stirring up a bidding war. Per Deadline, “The bidding is still in early stages. Some logical potential destinations would include UCP sibling Peacock, where Antosca recently did A Friend Of the Family; Apple TV+, where Scorsese has a first-look TV deal and just directed Killers Of the Flower Moon; Hulu, home of Antosca/UCP’s The Act and Candy; and Netflix, the platform of Antosca/UCP’s Brand New Cherry Flavor; with other major players, such as HBO, also said to be interested.”
Scorsese and Spielberg executive produce alongside Antosca and Alex Hedlund via Eat The Cat, the company Antosca launched four years ago, and Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey via Amblin Television.
Published in 2019, Stephen King‘s novel The Institute is getting a TV series adaptation from MGM+, with Deadline reporting today that the project has been given a series order.
Ben Barnes (Shadow and Bone) and Mary-Louise Parker (Weeds) will star.
The Institute comes from director/executive producer Jack Bender (Lost, Mr. Mercedes), writer/executive producer Benjamin Cavell (Justified, The Stand) and MGM+ Studios.
In the eight-episode series, “When 12-year-old genius Luke Ellis is kidnapped, he awakens at The Institute, a facility full of children who all got there the same way he did, and who are all possessed of unusual abilities. In a nearby town, haunted former police officer Tim Jamieson (Barnes) has come looking to start a new life, but the peace and quiet won’t last, as his story and Luke’s are destined to collide.” The website notes that Parker will play “Ms. Sigsby, the charming but iron-willed director of the Institute and a true believer in its awful mission.”
“I’m delighted and excited at the prospect of The Institute, with its high-intensity suspense, being filmed as a series,” King said. “The combination of Jack Bender and Ben Cavell guarantees that the results will be terrific.”
“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work again with Stephen King. And The Institute, based on his critically acclaimed novel, is an exciting addition to the MGM+ original series slate,” said Michael Wright, head of MGM+. “There is no creative team I would trust more to bring the book to life than Jack and Ben, whose creative vision and love of Mr. King’s voice, will bring this thought-provoking and gut-wrenching story to life, in the engaging, cinematic, and thrilling style MGM+ viewers expect.”
Here’s the novel’s full synopsis, via Amazon:
As psychically terrifying as Firestarter, and with the spectacular kid power of It, The Institute is Stephen King’s gut-wrenchingly dramatic story of good vs. evil in a world where the good guys don’t always win.
In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis’s parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there’s no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents—telekinesis and telepathy—who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and ten-year-old Avery Dixon. They are all in Front Half. Others, Luke learns, graduated to Back Half, “like the roach motel,” Kalisha says. “You check in, but you don’t check out.”
In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. There are no scruples here. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. If you don’t, punishment is brutal. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute.
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