Stephen King's "The Mist" Is Coming To Television

Just when you thought it was safe to go outside...

I have to admit, Stephen King's The Mist is one of my favorite short stories that the Master of Horror ever wrote.  It had a Hitchcock-feel to the whole thing because instead of ending with a definite conclusion, it just ended with the main characters driving off into the mist, trying to find other survivors.  The movie version, however, abandoned this move and gave us one of the most messed-up endings that I have ever seen in a film.  That wrong is about to be righted!

The Weinstein Company's (which produced the movie version of The Mist) Dimension Television is in the process of bring the Stephen King story to the small screen.  Considering how well The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead has done for AMC, this version of the story could quite possibly be another cult hit for television.  Why?  It has a lot of the same ingredients as The Walking Dead.  There's a small group of survivors that are thrown together due to something happening that they don't understand.  They have to figure out everything that's happening to them as it happens.  They are given no advance warning as to what is to come, and they have to figure out how to survive as they go along.  Sound familiar?

The other reason why this is a great fit for television is because of how the short story ended.  Like I said up above, there was no real conclusion.  In the book, a small group of the survivors made their way to a car and began driving in search of safety, but as they drive, they realize that the mist has covered everything and everywhere.  It ends with them trying to pick up a radio station to see if they can find out just what the hell is going one, but all they get is static.  Then, one word come through.  A name of a town.  They start driving towards that town in hopes of finding other people.  Then the story ends.  This open-ended finish to the story is perfect for a television show because the story leaves open the possibility for so much more to happen.  It's a television writer's dream.

While The Mist is coming to television, it won't be rehashing everything that took place in the movie, and may not even use any of the movie's, or the story's, main characters, but give us a whole new group of people while keeping the same premise of the original story.  That being said, this could be one of the great scary television shows in recent memory.