New Photos and Story Details For Stephen King and J.J. Abrams' New Series CASTLE ROCK
Hulu's Stephen King and J.J. Abrams series Castle Rock is one of my most anticipated shows of the year. I'm a huge fan of Stephen King and the fact that a ton of cool elements from his classic stories are going to come together in a new series set in the mysterious fictional town of Castle Rock is freakin' exciting!
Thanks to EW, we have three new images to share with you along with some new information on the series that I'm sure you'll find interesting. Before we get into that, I'll give you a little rundown of what we know and who stars in the series.
Castle Rock is a 10-episode psychological-horror series set in the Stephen King multiverse. It "combines the mythological scale and intimate character storytelling of King’s best-loved works, weaving an epic saga of darkness and light, played out on a few square miles of Maine woodland. The fictional Maine town of Castle Rock has figured prominently in King’s literary career: Cujo, The Dark Half, IT and Needful Things, as well as novella The Body and numerous short stories such as Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption are either set there or contain references to Castle Rock. As a series, Castle Rock aims to explore various themes and worlds, uniting the entire King canon, while brushing up against some of his most iconic and beloved stories."
The series is being written by Manhattan creator Sam Shaw and Dusty Thomason. It also has a great cast of actors that includes Terry O-Quinn (Lost), Scott Glenn (Daredevil), Andre Holland (Moonlight), Sissy Spacek (Carrie), Melanie Lynskey, Jane Levy (Evil Dead), and Bill Skarsgard (IT).
Now let's dive into some of this new information! Holland plays a character named Henry Deaver who is a death-row attorney who has a connection to Skarsgard's character, known as The Kid, who is a prisoner at Shawshank prison. Castle Rock is the last place that Henry wants to be. According to Holland, the town has taken a toll on him and "he wanted to get as far away from this town as he could. He has a complicated history with it."
The report explains that when Henry was a kid he "was involved in an accident that left his father dead and him the sole suspect, but he has no memory of it and eventually fled when townspeople turned against him." The only reason that Henry came back to the town was because Skarsgard's mysterious character in Shawshank asked for him, and only him. But Henry has never heard of the inmate, who has been in solitary confinement for so long that he is probably insane. When talking about The Kid, Skarsgård says:
"He’s a very traumatized creature. He’s very feral. He’s not normal. Everything is off and wounded in some way. A lot of what he’s been through has shaped who he is, and … I can’t say who he is without revealing what he’s been through."
Well, that's just a big tease! Now I'm even more curious about these characters! Castle Rock has such a fascinating history, and it's going to be really cool to see how all of this comes together and see what it all means.
After Abrams explains how there were "truly terrifying and truly creepy" things pitched to him when he came on board, the series co-creator Sam Shaw talked about what they decided to focus on when combing through all of King's work. They wanted the series to resonate with what is going on in today's world, and they found that in the stories that involve prison and justice:
"When we returned to his library, a lot of his stories about prison and justice were really compelling to us. They’re the closest things to true-life monster stories that we tell ourselves as a culture. How do we assign blame? How do we reckon with the idea of evil and whether we believe in it?”
Co-creator Dustin Thomason adds:
"Our intention was always to tell an original story in the tune of Stephen King. The germ of the idea was to think about the kinds of people who have the grit to stick it out in a place that’s been terrorized over and over again. Who stays in a place like that?"
A couple of characters that did stay in a place like that include Molly Strand (Lynskey), "whose real-estate business seems like a cruel joke she’s playing on herself." Lynskey explains, “It’s just the strangest choice. Why would you have that job in a town where no one wants to buy real estate?"
Then there's Alan Pangborn (Glenn), who is the iconic hero in King's stories Needful Things and The Dark Half. He was the sheriff of Castle Rock in those stories, but he's not the sheriff anymore when we find him in the series. He's described as being a "lion in winter living with, a bitterness, day by day."
It's explained that bitterness ties into another character that never left Castle Rock, Ruth Deaver (Spacek). She is Henry’s adoptive mother, "who suffers from dementia and struggles to remember where — and when — she is." When talking about the series, she explains:
"The Stephen King world is a good place to be. This story, really, is an homage to him. I hope we were able to do him proud."
It sounds like he is proud. He's already seen the pilot episode and he told Abrams that he loved it. In regards to what Shaw said:
"It was a very, very cool moment, when J.J. forwarded us the email. You want to be sure that when Stephen King watches your Stephen King show, he’s happy."
Damn, I can't wait to watch this show!