TV
“Swan Song” – Greg Nicotero Executive Producing Series Based on Robert McCammon’s Post-Apocalyptic Novel
Longtime “The Walking Dead” executive producer/director and “Creepshow” showrunner Greg Nicotero has a new genre action series in the works with “Swan Song,” based on Robert McCammon‘s bestselling post-apocalyptic novel. Deadline reports that Nicotero is on board to executive produce and direct the pilot episode.
In Swan Song, “following the U.S. government’s nuclear showdown with an unprecedented malevolent enemy, America as it was is gone forever. Now the remaining citizens must fight to stay alive in a wasteland born of rage and fear, populated by monstrous creatures and marauding armies.”
While Nicotero will helm the pilot, the search for a series’ writer is underway.
“Being a longtime fan of Robert’s novels, his story of survival in a world forever changed by political mistrust and international intrigue intertwined with a supernatural force has always been one of my favorites,” Nicotero told Deadline. “The time is perfect to delve into this world.”
“The post-apocalyptic world of McCammon’s novel is incredibly compelling, and unlike anything we have seen before in film or television,” said Barnett, Powell and Patel in a joint statement. “We’re very excited to bring this world to life and can’t imagine any better partners for the series than Greg and Brian, particularly with Greg’s years of experience in expanding the world of walkers in The Walking Dead.“
The series is a collaboration between Monarch Media and Greg Nicotero and Brian Witten’s Monster Agency Productions. Nicotero and Witten will executive produce through Monster Agency, and Steve Barnett, Alan Powell and Vicky Patel will executive produce through Monarch Media, along with McCammon. Brandi Hagedorn will co-produce.
McCammon’s Swan Song initially published in 1987 and won a Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel in 1987 along with Stephen King’s Misery.
The book’s synopsis gives a little more insight to what we might expect from the series: “Facing down an unprecedented malevolent enemy, the US government responds with a nuclear attack. Soon, America as it was is gone forever, and now every citizen—from the president of the United States to the homeless on the streets of New York City—will fight to stay alive. In a wasteland born of rage and fear, populated by monstrous creatures and marauding armies, Earth’s last survivors are drawn into the final battle between good and evil, which will decide the fate of humanity: Sister, who discovers a strange and transformative glass artifact in the destroyed Manhattan streets…Joshua Hutchins, the pro wrestler who takes refuge from the nuclear fallout at a Nebraska gas station…and Swan, a young girl possessing special powers, who travels alongside Josh to a Midwest town where healing and recovery can begin with her extraordinary gifts. But the ancient force behind the world’s devastation is scouring the walking wounded for recruits to build its relentless army, beginning with Swan herself…”
Stay tuned for additional details as this series takes shape.
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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