Much-appreciated novel by Stephen King and Peter Straub is all set for a film adaptation by filmmaker Mike Barker, as per a report by Collider

Having directed episodes of Fargo, Outlander, and Broadchurch as well as a spate of episodes of the Hulu hit The Handmaid’s tale, Barker has embarked on the elaborate project.

A film adaptation of The Talisman, the massive novel by Stephen King and Peter Straub, is in the works with filmmaker Mike Barker, Collider reports.

In the novel, twelve-year-old Jack Sawyer sets out from New Hampshire in an effort to save his mother, who is dying from cancer, by finding a crystal called “the Talisman.” Jack’s journey takes him simultaneously through the American heartland and “the Territories, a strange fantasy land which is set in a universe parallel to that of Jack’s the United States. Individuals in the Territories have “twinners,” or parallel individuals, in our world.

The Talisman was nominated for both the Locus and World Fantasy Awards in 1985, and in 2001, King and Straub wrote a sequel, Black House, which picks up with a now-adult Jack as a retired Los Angeles cop trying to solve a series of murders in a small town. Wikipedia (whose synopses we have been using because it’s been a decade since I looked at these books) indicates that the Jack Sawyer books are a planned trilogy, which likely makes for tempting filmmaking.

The Talisman has been optioned numerous times in the last 35 years and has been in and out of development hell a few times. It was adapted into a 2008 short film by Mathieu Ratthe (which you can check out below), although that was not an official adaptation.

We will keep you updated.

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