We only just returned to the Overlook Hotel in last year’s Doctor Sleep, but Warner Bros. is already sending us back to that winter vacation resort from hell for a new TV series that’ll act as a spinoff of Stephen King’s The Shining. The Hollywood Reporter revealed today that Overlook is in the works at the studio for release on the HBO Max streaming service. What’s more is that J.J. Abrams is attached to produce.
THR notes that Overlook will bring back iconic characters from King’s 1977 novel and Stanley Kubrick’s seminal 1980 movie version, and will explore “the untold, terrifying stories of the most famous haunted hotel in American fiction.” Of course, this is the second time that Bad Robot and Warner Bros. TV have made a TV show based on King’s work, following Hulu’s Castle Rock anthology series. In fact, that description makes Overlook sound like an anthology as well, but this has yet to be spelled out.
The 10-episode drama is set to be written and exec produced by Dustin Thomason and Scott Brown, who are also alums of Castle Rock – which adds further evidence to the anthology theory. The good news is that the showrunners have already opened up “a mini writers room” to get started on the scripting, even though Hollywood’s currently shut down over the coronavirus pandemic.
As you may’ve heard, this is just one of three Abrams-led projects headed to HBO Max. In the same article, THR confirms that Duster, an original series thought up by the Star Wars filmmaker, and a “major” Justice League Dark TV show, Abrams’ first dabble in the DC universe, are likewise joining Overlook on the service.
“What an amazing start to our association with the wildly imaginative Bad Robot team under J.J. and Katie,” Kevin Reilly, chief content officer at HBO Max, said in a statement. “What could be better than an original J.J. idea and then Warner Bros. letting them loose on iconic IP from Stephen King and the DC Universe and to provide more must-have programming on HBO Max.”
Similar to Justice League Dark, Warner Bros. have been trying to develop an Overlook Hotel project for years, with a similarly-conceived movie – described as a prequel – ordered back in 2014. It seems it took Abrams to get involved and the creation of HBO Max though to give a new lease of life to this offshoot of The Shining, and we can’t wait to see what he has in store for us.