Stephen King's The Talisman is dead
I can't believe the news that The Talisman has died a horrible death, it's one of the best works of Stephen King and it also had huge backing in the form of Steven Spielberg, Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy, that huge unstoppable force of production. Well they've been stopped now.
The story comes from Moviehole interviewing Mick Garris:
Whatever happened to it? "I would love to know", says Garris. "It was Spielberg, Frank Marshall and Kathy Kennedy. They had the rights to it. They tried to make it a feature for like fifteen years. Finally, they said let's do it as a 4-hour mini series. I wrote a script that everybody was very happy with, and at that time it was for the ABC Network – who did The Stand, The Shining and Desperation. It was before Lost or Desperate Housewives, they [ABC] were in the worst financial state of their history, so with Spielberg, Kathy Kenney, Frank Marshall, Stephen King, Peter Straub and me involved – they couldn't afford it. So, then decided Stephen decided he wanted to make it a feature and at first I was involved - and then I wasn't - and there have been two or three directors on and off, and other writers, but it's not happening anymore. It's too bad. It was one of my favourite things, and I really wanted to make it."
That's so disheartening. I used to be a huge King fan and I just lost interest when his stories continued on the same themes, characters and plot twists. The originality seemed to fade away for me, until the Gunslinger series that is. Out of all his work The Talisman really does stand high for me, perhaps in the top five (if the Gunslinger series is treated as one). It's a fantastic tale with some superbly imagined characters and would look just wonderful onscreen. Shame on them for letting it die.
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