the industry

Stephen King Puts a Curse on Your Television

King on King: Stephen King will adapt his 2005 novella The Colorado Kid into an hour-long TV series, retitled Haven, for indie studio E1 Entertainment. The action takes place in a town in Maine where cursed people go to live peacefully in exile; when their curses return, an FBI agent is brought in to fend them off while unraveling the town’s mysteries. Much of the creative forces behind King’s TV adaptation of The Dead Zone for the USA Network are behind this one as well, which bodes well since Zone was a show we all watched and enjoyed and definitely did not find out about just now. [Variety]

Burnett Gets Fake: Dirty Sexy Money creator Craig Wright has set up a drama project at CBS, with reality-TV heavyweight Mark Burnett co-producing. The plot revolves around “a lawyer who, after a near-fatal car crash, is offered a second chance at life by the ghost of his ex-wife.” We made sure to quote directly because in such a short span, so little sense is made — did his ex-wife die in the car crash that did not kill him or is she independently dead? Why does he need a second chance at life if the crash was only near-fatal? And, seriously, we’re doing ghost ex-wives now? [HR]

Miller Time: Omar Miller has joined the cast of CSI: Miami, playing Walter Simmons, a Louisiana native and art-theft expert who switches over from the night team to join David Caruso’s crew. Miller is perhaps best known for playing both Eminem’s buddy (in 8 Mile) and 50 Cent’s (in Get Rich or Die Trying); if Miller’s character becomes close to Caruso, he’ll have played a friend to every great emcee of our time. [HR]

Grilled: TLC is adding to its burgeoning slate of food-themed shows with BBQ Pit Masters, an hour-long series that focuses on nationwide barbecue competitions. Launching December 2, it’ll run initially for eight episodes. Variety describes the show’s focus as the “cutthroat world of competing grillers,” which is funny because … really? And also because these people actually have sharp knifes with which to cut one another’s throats. [Variety]

To the Max: Bit actors turned writers Mitch Rouse and Christopher Nelson have sold their spec script, Supermax, to Columbia. The action-horror flick takes place in a maximum-security prison … for the supernatural! The protagonist is a prison guard who, in the midst of a riot, joins forces with one of the inmates to fight his way out. We hope it’s not an inmate who can teleport things, ‘cause that’d be a short movie. [HR]

Stephen King Puts a Curse on Your Television