He is rather busy making the new entry in the Star Wars franchise, but if J.J. Abrams has proved anything, it’s that he knows how to multi-task. With the help of his Bad Robot team, he’ll be shepherding a series based on Stephen King’s time-travelling, JFK-focused novel 11/22/64 to the online streaming channel Hulu.
King’s book, which hit shelves in 2011, follows 35 year-old high school English teacher Jake Epping, who becomes obsessed with John F. Kennedy’s assassination and finds a way to travel back in time to try to prevent the shooting in 1960s Dallas. The tome was originally headed to the big screen with Jonathan Demme involved, but hasn’t managed to escape development limbo.
Now Hulu has splashed the cash to bring King, Abrams and Bad Robot’s Bryan Burk aboard as executive producers, with Friday Night Lights veteran Bridget Carpenter handling show-running duties for what is currently a stand-alone story based on the novel that includes flexibility for further seasons should the idea prove successful.
“If I ever wrote a book that cries out for long-form, event TV programming, 11/22/63 is it,” King says in a statement picked up by Entertainment Weekly.
Abrams added, “I’ve been a fan of Stephen King since I was in junior high school. The chance to work with him at all, let alone on a story so compelling, emotional and imaginative, is a dream.”
It’s not the first time Abrams has tried to tackle King – he wanted to turn The Dark Tower into a film back in 2007 – but moved on to other projects when he couldn’t crack that mammoth task. There’s no word on when the show will premiere, but it’ll join the current King-based series, Under The Dome, which airs on US broadcast network CBS.