The feature adaptation of Stephen King’s novel Fairy Tale we first heard about in 2022 is getting reimagined into a ten-episode series.
Deadline broke the news that A24, the studio behind films like Green Knight, Everything Everywhere All At Once, and Midsommar, has picked up the project. Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy), who wrote the feature script, is still involved. He will be working with J.H. Wyman, whose previous credits include showrunning the TV series Fringe, to expand the story over ten episodes, something that will be feasible given the book clocks in at over six hundred pages. Wyman will also serve as showrunner for the Fairy Tale series.
Here’s the synopsis for Fairy Tale:
Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was ten, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. Then, when Charlie is seventeen, he meets Howard Bowditch, a recluse with a big dog in a big house at the top of a big hill. In the backyard is a locked shed from which strange sounds emerge, as if some creature is trying to escape. When Mr. Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie the house, a massive amount of gold, a cassette tape telling a story that is impossible to believe, and a responsibility far too massive for a boy to shoulder.
Because within the shed is a portal to another world—one whose denizens are in peril and whose monstrous leaders may destroy their own world, and ours. In this parallel universe, where two moons race across the sky, and the grand towers of a sprawling palace pierce the clouds, there are exiled princesses and princes who suffer horrific punishments; there are dungeons; there are games in which men and women must fight each other to the death for the amusement of the “Fair One.” And there is a magic sundial that can turn back time.
The project is still in its early days, so no news yet on casting or when we’ll be able to watch.
