There was a time when you could count on each year being punctuated with a made for TV adaptation of a Stephen King novel – some were legendary, Salem’s Lot, The Stand, and other’s well – perhaps legendary for reasons other than they intended – can anyone say The Langoliers? Unfortunately and perhaps unfairly the 1993 ABC mini-series The Tommyknockers managed to find itself in that later territory. And odd tale of aliens and technology and violence-inducing fumes run amok was a big rating hit back in the day but always seemed to get a tepid response from fans. Would this make it ripe for remake bait? It would appear as if two horror heavy hitters might think so.
James Wan and Roy Lee are teaming up to bring us a retelling of this classic King tale. James Wan, of course, is the man behind – wait, you know what, if I have to explain to you who James Wan is – you’re reading the wrong horror website. Roy Lee is one of the men behind last years massive hit – the redo of Stephen King’s IT.
Because of IT‘s success – remaking King’s second largest selling book of all time is kind of a no-brainer. Attaching the producing talent that they have is just icing on the cake.
In case you have forgotten the tale – The Tommyknockers tells the story of “a town in Maine that falls under the influence of a dangerous gas from an unearthed spacecraft. The gas begins to transform the people, giving them enhanced abilities, but also making them violent and subject to an alien hive mentality. One man, thanks to a steel plate in his head, is immune to the effects and tries to stop the townspeople.”
This isn’t the first time a reboot of this tale has been bantered around – about 5 years back NBC announced they would give the mini-series a reboot but – we’re still waiting. So – we’ll see what Wan and Lee come up with – hopefully, this one will get off the ground sooner than later.
