If ever there was a time to get your favorite Stephen King novel adapted into a movie or TV series it’s right now. The author’s works have never been more popular, and we’ve seen numerous studios attempting to strike while the iron is hot. Steven Spielberg has held the rights to King and Peter Straub’s 1984 book, The Talisman, for more than thirty years but a film has never been made. That may be about to change very soon, though.
King and Spielberg gave an interview with EW that saw The Talisman come up in discussion. King said, “Several times [Spielberg] came very close to making it, and there were a lot of discussions about that.” After which Spielberg chimed in with…
“I feel that in the very near future, that’s going to be our richest collaboration. 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. 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.”
So Spielberg isn’t planning to direct it, that much is clear. He’s busy enough already with Indiana Jones 5, West Side Story, and a secret third movie. That means he would likely produce and hand the directing reins over to someone else. Maybe it’ll be New Mutants director Josh Boone, who was hired last year to work on The Talisman‘s screenplay? Boone is also attached to direct an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand.
We just don’t know, but I expect we’ll find out soon. Check out a synopsis for The Talisman below:
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.
