I have written previously that we are living in a time of a Stephen King renaissance. While interest in his work has not waned to Constant Readers over the past 40 years, new audiences have become interested in his work due to the success of IT in 2017 and the moderate hit that is the newer take on Pet Sematary. The King dominion shows no signs of slowing down with the IT sequel coming this fall and adaptations of The Dark Tower (Amazon), The Outsider (HBO), The Stand (CBS All Access), and now Lisey’s Story (Apple TV+) all coming to your TV via streaming and cable services.
With Apple TV+ looking to get into the streaming game and compete directly with Netflix, Amazon, and soon Disney Plus, they’ve gotten some heavy hitters with the likes of Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, J.J. Abrams, and others. Now, you can add The Master of Horror to the roster as The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that an adaptation of King’s 2006 horror romance novel Lisey’s Story will be coming to Apple TV+. The biggest news is a trio of those involved in the making of the 8 episodes series.
Five -time Academy Award nominee and Best Actress winner Julianne Moore is attached to play the title character of Lisey Landon, a widow who is finally cleaning out the belongings of her novelist husband two years after his death. Finally deciding to let go of his possessions leads her to confront the dead man’s past, their life together, and puts her in conflict with a disturbed fan who is obsessed with his writing. And that’s about as non-spoiler of a plot synopsis as I can give you.
Also involved in his third Stephen King property (11.22.63 and Castle Rock) is J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot Productions team. The biggest hook for Constant Readers such as myself is that the man himself, Stephen King, will be writing the entire show. This is wonderful news for someone like me who was very disgruntled with the writers of the new Pet Sematary who seem to think they’re better writers than Mr. King. The author has went on record more than once is saying that Lisey’s Story is his personal favorite thing he has ever written and him being on board to write the series is good enough for his legion of fans to have a higher interest in this project than most adaptations.
There is currently no release date for Lisey’s Story, but Apple TV+ plans to launch this fall with a strong lineup and it wouldn’t be too surprising to see this one hit the service before the end of 2019.
Mike is a Booktuber and the host of Mike’s Book Reviews.
A Constant Reader and Stephen King superfan, he declares himself a movie quotes expert and will fight you if you say anything negative about Frank Herbert’s Dune.
