1 Major Stephen King Curse Continues With News From The Duffer Brothers

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The creators of Stranger Things, the Duffer Brothers, were initially expected to overcome a long-standing pattern of unsuccessful adaptations of Stephen King’s novels, but they’ve now confirmed that pattern will continue. Stephen King, who first gained fame with Carrie in 1974, has become one of the most successful authors of our time, known for his work in horror, science fiction, and fantasy.

Stephen King has written over 65 books, and he’s still writing more! He plans to finish the Talisman trilogy, even though his co-author Peter Straub has died, and is working on another book featuring the character Holly Gibney. Plus, many of his stories are currently being adapted for film and television.

One of Stephen King’s most popular books seems to be jinxed. Despite selling the rights to The Talisman to Steven Spielberg back in the 1980s, it’s never been adapted into a movie or TV show. Recent news from the Duffer Brothers suggests this long-standing problem will continue.

The TV Adaptation Of Stephen King’s The Talisman Is No Longer In The Works

For forty years, adapting Stephen King and Peter Straub’s novel, The Talisman, had been a long-sought goal for Steven Spielberg. Finally, in 2022, it was announced that the creators of Stranger Things, the Duffer Brothers, would be producing a TV series based on the book. The project is a collaboration between Spielberg’s Amblin Television, Paramount Television Studios, and will be distributed by Netflix.

The Duffer Brothers have unfortunately cancelled plans for their TV series, and they’ve apologized to Stephen King fans for the disappointment. Ross Duffer explained that the project ended when Netflix dropped The Talisman. Matt Duffer added that they likely underestimated the challenges of adapting the novel, saying, “We probably shouldn’t have thought we could easily make it work.”

Ross shared that he recalled reading a screenplay during a college internship at Kennedy Marshall. He believes it was for the movie Talisman, which has been in development for a long time, and jokingly apologized that his team wasn’t the one to finally bring it to fruition.

I was really disappointed to hear the Duffer Brothers’ new show was cancelled. Their work on Stranger Things showed they could definitely pull off a large, complex story with elements of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. Still, considering the troubled history of the source material, it wasn’t entirely unexpected.

The Talisman By Stephen King Has Been Cursed Since Its Release

Custom image by Yeider Chacon

Stephen King and Peter Straub’s novel, The Talisman, has been notoriously difficult to adapt for the screen. Despite being a bestseller, it’s been in development for nearly 40 years, and many attempts to bring it to life haven’t succeeded. It’s not due to a lack of effort, though.

Soon after Stephen King’s novel The Talisman was published in 1984, Steven Spielberg wanted to make it into a movie and secured the rights with Universal Pictures. Unfortunately, the project never happened because of disagreements between Stephen King and Sidney Sheinberg, who was Spielberg’s mentor and the head of Universal. King discussed the situation in an interview on the podcast The Kingcast.

Spielberg spent forty years considering this project, and the conversations he had with Sid Sheinberg – who often acted as a sounding board for him – were challenging and involved a lot of debate.

I was going through a period of heavy drinking and drug use at the time. He was insistent on managing Stephen, treating him like a child and shielding him from too much responsibility. I thought, ‘He’s an adult, a creative person – why can’t we just be allowed to work independently?’ But we couldn’t reach an agreement, and it never resolved itself.

The story of bringing this fantastical tale to the screen didn’t stop with the 1980s film. Steven Spielberg remained dedicated to adapting The Talisman, and he teamed up with Kathleen Kennedy, who shared his enthusiasm, to produce it.

Richard LaGravenese was brought in to write the screenplay, and a draft from May 22, 1992, can still be found online (thanks to Stephen Bachelor). This is probably the script the Duffer brothers mentioned when they apologized. However, the project never actually got made.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Spielberg then tried to turn The Talisman into a four-hour miniseries for ABC. Mick Garris wrote the script this time, but ABC cancelled the project because it was too expensive. Spielberg then sought funding from Universal Pictures and DreamWorks to make it into a movie. The project was well underway, with a planned production timeline already established.

The project was put on hold until 2005, when TNT and DreamWorks TV agreed to collaborate on a short-form series. They generated excitement, and The Talisman was scheduled to debut in the summer of 2008. Sadly, the production companies canceled it again, this time due to budgetary concerns.

The project briefly returned to a film format, with Josh Boone writing a new screenplay and creating initial storyboards in 2017 (according to Bloody Disgusting). Although this version didn’t succeed, Boone eventually got the chance to collaborate with Stephen King, fulfilling a long-held ambition.

In 2021, a new effort to adapt Stephen King’s The Talisman as a screen production was announced: a TV series created in collaboration between Stephen Spielberg, the Duffer Brothers, and Netflix. This project is considered the most promising adaptation attempt to date.

This was exactly the right team and approach for adapting The Talisman. I would have loved to see The Duffer Brothers’ filmmaking style combined with the story by Straub and King, and Spielberg’s creative vision. Unfortunately, it looks like The Talisman will continue to be difficult to bring to the screen.

Why The Talisman Is So Difficult To Adapt For The Screen

The main reason The Talisman hasn’t been successfully adapted is simple: money. In today’s film industry, companies are hesitant to spend a lot on a project unless they’re confident it will be profitable. It’s an unfortunate truth, but that’s just how things work.

Unfortunately, The Talisman is a complex fantasy story that would be very difficult and expensive to adapt for television. A large part of the story takes place in The Territories, a fantastical world resembling medieval times, and bringing it to life with today’s visual effects standards would require a huge budget, similar to a blockbuster movie.

Before HBO’s Game of Thrones debuted in 2011, investing huge sums of money in a television series was unheard of. But over the last fifteen years, it’s become increasingly common, making the show created by the Duffer Brothers look like a good bet.

The project, originally developed with Netflix for The Talisman, has moved forward without them. The team switched to Paramount+ because Netflix wasn’t willing to prioritize releasing projects in theaters. Unless Paramount+ decides to continue with it, it’s unlikely the same creative team will work on The Talisman TV show.

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2025-12-30 17:30