Another Victor LaValle story is headed to a screen near you. The author’s The Changeling is in the works at Apple TV+, and now, AMC Networks has opened a writers’ room for The Devil in Silver, which Variety reports is “envisioned as the first installment in a potential anthology franchise.” LaValle is the creator of the series, which he’ll co-executive produce with Halt and Catch Fire co-creator Christopher Cantwell.
The Devil in Silver is about a man who finds himself committed to a mental institution for a crime he can’t remember committing. The book summary says:
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The Devil in Silver
Pepper is a rambunctious big man, minor-league troublemaker, working-class hero (in his own mind), and, suddenly, the surprised inmate of a budget-strapped mental institution in Queens, New York. He’s not mentally ill, but that doesn’t seem to matter. He is accused of a crime he can’t quite square with his memory. In the darkness of his room on his first night, he’s visited by a terrifying creature with the body of an old man and the head of a bison who nearly kills him before being hustled away by the hospital staff. It’s no delusion: The other patients confirm that a hungry devil roams the hallways when the sun goes down. Pepper rallies three other inmates in a plot to fight back: Dorry, an octogenarian schizophrenic who’s been on the ward for decades and knows all its secrets; Coffee, an African immigrant with severe OCD, who tries desperately to send alarms to the outside world; and Loochie, a bipolar teenage girl who acts as the group’s enforcer. Battling the pill-pushing staff, one another, and their own minds, they try to kill the monster that’s stalking them. But can the Devil die?
According to Variety, the network sees the adaptation as “the first season in a potential new horror anthology series for AMC and AMC+ that will feature average people caught up in horrific stories in today’s world.”
LaValle shared his enthusiasm on Twitter:
Thanks everyone!
Excited because it’s a 6 episode show. One season to tell the whole story. No holding back, no stretching out storylines. We throw everything into the pot and don’t hold anything back. It’s going to be a blast.
— Victor LaValle (@victorlavalle) September 28, 2022
The series is being developed under AMC’s “script-to-series” model, which Variety explains “involves opening writers’ rooms to develop prospective shows, including generating multiple scripts, for straight-to-series consideration. The two projects, for which AMC commissioned writers rooms last year, Invitation to a Bonfire and Demascus, both went to series.”
No casting or release date has been announced.
