Movies
TV: ‘Dead Zone’ Team Reunites for Stephen King’s ‘Haven’!
Stephen King is taking another stab at the smallscreen, signing on to turn his novella “The Colorado Kid” into an hourlong series for indie studio E1 Entertainment (“Hung”). Titled Haven, the project centers on a spooky town in Maine where cursed folk live normal lives in exile. When those curses start returning, FBI agent Audrey Parker is brought in to keep those supernatural forces at bay — while trying to unravel the mysteries of Haven.
The team who turned King’s “The Dead Zone” into a series for USA Network are at it again for “Haven”: Scott Shepherd will serve as showrunner and exec produce with Lloyd Segan and Shawn Piller. Shepherd, Segan and Piller were all exec producers on “The Dead Zone,” which ran for six seasons and went off the air in 2008.
Two more “Dead Zone” alums, Sam Ernst and Jim Dunn, are writing the pilot and will also serve as exec producers. E1’s John Morayniss and Noreen Halpern are exec producers as well.
E1 has already committed to producing 13 episodes of “Haven” and is in advanced talks with several European broadcast partners to sign on and help finance the show.
E1 plans to bring the international co-production to next month’s Mipcom confab. After securing an international partner, the company will turn its attention to finding U.S. and Canadian broadcasters. E1 has aggressively pursued international co-productions, setting up series such as “Copper” for ABC and Canwest and “The Bridge” for CBS and CTV.
Morayniss said production on “Haven” will commence some time in the next six months, after partners are secured and casting is finalized.
“The Colorado Kid” was first published in 2005. Adaptation was initially developed for ABC for the 2008-09 TV season.
King has a long history of seeing his works translated for television — most recently, the Syfy longform “Children of the Corn,” which was telecast this past weekend.
King was also behind ABC’s 2003-04 TV series “Stephen King’s Kingdom Hospital,” which was actually based on a Danish miniseries. Other recent King adaptations include ABC’s telepic “Stephen King’s Desperation” and TNT’s mini “Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot.”
Movies
R-Rated ‘The X-Files: I Want to Believe’ Director’s Cut Gets New Title and Streaming Premiere Date
After a slight delay, Disney has finally announced a new streaming date for the R-Rated director’s cut of The X-Files: I Want to Believe. According to Gizmodo, it’ll also come with a new title.
The X-Files: I Want to Believe Vrach Frankenshteyn begins streaming on Hulu on August 14.
The new cut was first teased in an interview with director Chris Carter on the Fail Better With David Duchovny podcast from last year, where he teased a much scarier movie he intended.
“Now I have a chance to go back and make the scary movie that I always intended to make,” Carter explained last year. “It’s not just doing a Director’s Cut to do a Director’s Cut. It’s really kind of bringing to life something that for me was on the page and never got to the screen.“
The director’s cut of the film was initially set to arrive on Disney+ in June, but quietly disappeared from the schedule without a word. Polygon reported the delay was “due to some last-minute adjustments being made to the film.”
The release’s new “Vrach Frankenshteyn” certainly suggests those adjustments have been made, likely referring to a Frankensteining of bonus footage.
In the film, Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) have been out of the FBI for several years, with Mulder living in isolation and Scully having become a doctor at a Catholic hospital, where she has formed a bond with a critically ill child patient.
When an FBI agent is mysteriously kidnapped, and a former Catholic priest who has been convicted of pedophilia claims to be experiencing psychic visions of the endangered agent, Scully is asked to bring Mulder back to the bureau to consult on the case because of his work with psychics.
The brand new R-rated cut will “faithfully restore the filmmaker’s original vision.”
Look for it on Hulu next month.