Eli Roth is no longer directing Stephen King's Cell, and what's more is that the story isn't going to become a film, it's now going to be made into a television mini-series, and what does that spell for it? Disaster.

The script for the four hour long mini-series is now being written, but to me it sounds like this is going to be another inferior knock off of an inferior Stephen King novel, when it's clear that they should not be sullying the name of King any more until they get a decent film series for The Dark Tower.

However what does Hollywood care about what I think? I'm just one paying film and Dark Tower fan.

Having read Stephen King's Cell (Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com) I have to admit to thinking it's more of the same from King. Although there are some great sequences which would work well on screen, there's nothing in it that really excites me like his first novels did.

I felt that way about King for a long time after being a huge fan and reading everything he wrote, I started to see the same themes and turn of plots from his work and became tired. Then came The Dark Tower series (Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com) and I was hooked to a series more than anything in my life, and it wasn't until I read the final line of the final book that I realised the power of the written word.

So I have to admit to being slightly excited when I heard that Eli Roth was going to tackle Cell, I thought he might do something rather clever with it and really twist it into a big film. Well that looks like it's gone through the ringer and come out the other side sans Roth.

According to Fangoria through Quiet Earth, the film is off and the Weinstein Company have been farming out the project to television networks.

Now John Harrison is scripting a four hour mini-series script. He's the man who co-wrote and directed Clive Barker's Book of Blood in Edinburgh, and wrote the recent Dune television series. He also write the Painkiller Jane television script.

According to the story Harrison is keen to see those opening thirty minutes on the big screen and that he thinks the key is not the zombie aspect, but that hive mentality that they displayed.

Well that's certainly one of the more unique aspects, but you just have to look at the history of King on television to see that this isn't going to be ground breaking anything or raking in the cash. We're not going to be seeing something akin to Battlestar Galactica, and I think it's a real shame we're not going to get to see a film version handled by a big director.