Spike's The Mist Series Is a "Reimagination," Not a Remake

When Spike announced that it was turning Stephen King's novella The Mistinto a series, many fans wondered how the short story would be adapted into a serialized format. And on Friday, the stars and executive producer of the new drama gave a few hints as to how they're tackling the tricky task during the Television Critics Association's winter previews.

"Let's call it a reimagination," says executive producer Christian Torpe. "Internally, we talk about it as doing the Fargo approach, where the movie and the TV show is the same, but it's different. It's like a weird, twisted cousin to the original source material. Fans of the movie and of the book and of Mr. King's work will certainly see elements from it. ... We also, in order to develop it for TV and turn it into an ongoing series, took our own little detours here and there."

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King's celebrated horror novel was previously turned into a 2007 movie that featured a different ending from the book. As opposed to the hopeful, but uncertain original ending, director Frank Darabont's film ending showed the lead character kill the fellow survivors in his group just minutes before the U.S. Army arrives to rescue them. When asked about where he stood on the film's controversial ending, Torpe teased that the show's ending would likely feature the dark tone of the film's ending rather than the hopeful ending of the book.

"I personally love Mr. [Frank Darabont's] ending," Torpe says. "I thought it was a stroke of genius. We are playing around in that territory and we also know, of course, Mr. King's ending. And I know Mr. King actually preferred Darabont's ending And so I think we came up with our own spin on a very original and surprising ending."

The show will also follow multiple groups of people struggling to survive the Mist. Alyssa Sutherland will play a mother who gets trapped in a mall with her daughter and her daughter's rapist; Morgan Spector will play the father of Sutherland's daughter who is stuck in a different location from the rest of his family; Okezie Morro will play a man with amnesia struggling to find allies; and Frances Conroy will play a woman whose ideas regarding the origin of the monstrous mist will lead to great conflict within her small community of survivors.
The Mist will premiere later this year.