King + Spielberg. Take all the money.
Published in 1984 and written by Stephen King and Peter Straub, fantasy epic The Talisman is one of the few notable King stories that to date has not yet been adapted for either the small screen or the big one. This despite Steven Spielberg owning the rights to the book since the ’80s, with various aborted adaptations taking different forms.
At one point, the plan was to turn the book into a six-hour TNT mini-series.
So what’s the status on that potential adaptation of The Talisman? In a must-read piece from EW, all about the King/Spielberg connection, Spielberg says it’s still on his radar!
“I feel that in the very near future, that’s going to be our richest collaboration,” Spielberg told the site. “Universal bought the book for me, so it wasn’t optioned. It was an outright sale of the book. I’ve owned the book since ’82, and I’m hoping to get this movie made in the next couple of years.”
He made sure to add, “I’m not committing to the project as a director, I’m just saying that it’s something that I’ve wanted to see come to theaters for the last 35 years.”
In The Talisman, “Jack Sawyer, twelve years old, is about to begin a most fantastic journey, an exalting, terrifying quest for the mystical Talisman—the only thing that can save Jack’s dying mother. But to reach his goal, Jack must make his way not only across the breadth of the United States but also through the wondrous and menacing parallel world of the Territories.
In the Territories, Jack finds another realm, where the air is so sweet and clear a man can smell a radish being pulled from the ground a mile away—and a life can be snuffed out instantly in the continuing struggle between good and evil. Here Jack discovers “Twinners,” reflections of the people he knows on earth—most notably Queen Laura, the Twinner of Jack’s own imperiled mother. As Jack “flips” between worlds, making his way westward toward the redemptive Talisman, a sequence of heart-stopping encounters challenges him at every step.”
