Deadline has brought word that Hulu and Fox 21 are teaming up to develop what they hope will be the answer to the HBO fantasy drama Game of Thrones with a series adaptation of Stephen King’s well-received 1984 fantasy novel Eyes of the Dragon.
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The novel, which was a major deviation for the horror master as he ventured into the fantasy genre, is set in the realm of Delain, which is part of the In-World from King’s Dark Tower series, and follows two prince brothers whose lives are thrown into turmoil when their parents are murdered and one of them is framed for it while the other is left to be king of the kingdom at the young age of 12. The young king hands all of his authority to his father’s manipulative magician, Flagg, who the jailed brother is attempting to escape and prove his involvement in the murder of their parents.
Despite receiving generally positive reviews from critics at the time of its release and King’s desire to write a story his children could read, readers were very up in arms at the author deviating from his normal genre wheelhouse and expressed their outrage over the project not being horror-related. The negative fan reception gave King the idea for his acclaimed follow-up novel Misery, in which the protagonist’s dealing with a murderous fan unsatisfied with the final installment of his acclaimed series was akin to King’s obsessive fanbase.
An attempt to adapt the material was previously in development in the late 1990s for an animated film to be released in 2001, but after development languished the rights eventually lapsed and after a second attempt by Syfy to adapt the story into either a film or miniseries, the rights lapsed once more and Hulu has successfully beat out Apple in an auction to the rights.
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The pilot is being developed by The Lego Batman Movie‘s Seth Grahame-Smith, who will pen the script and act as the showrunner while also executive producing it alongside David Katzenberg, Bill Haber, Roy Lee and Jon Berg.
“I am so excited to be working in the world of Stephen King with with Hulu, which has such a terrific track record with Stephen King adaptations,” Grahame-Smith told Deadline. “The goal for this series is to feel unlike any Stephen King adaptation before, with this rich underlying source material, and the only true fantasy book he wrote that has kings and swords and princesses. We will honor the spirit of the book and the legacy.”
