By Carli Velocci
February 23, 2017
February 23, 2017
Geek.com
Most
Stephen King movie or TV adaptations have been just that: adaptations. Some
have taken some liberties with the material, with the least faithful being
reinterpretations of his writing.
So when
a teaser trailer for something called Castle Rock appeared online,
people were puzzled. Castle Rock doesn’t refer to the name of an
existing book. If it comes from the “world of Stephen King,” then what past
property is it based on?
Apparently
a lot of them. Castle Rock is a fictional town in Maine that acts as the
setting for many of King’s works, and the show, which has been picked up by
Hulu for ten episodes and will be created in part with J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot,
will apparently connect a bunch of them.
The
teaser doesn’t reveal much–just dropping in the names of books, characters, and
locales familiar to King readers–so it was unclear what the show would be
about.
Hulu
sent around a press release, which provided the synopsis and confirmed that
many of King’s most famous works will be connected. Den of Geek posted the plot
summary:
“A
psychological horror series set in the Stephen King multiverse, Castle Rock 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… Castle
Rock is an original suspense/thriller — a first-of-its-kind
reimagining that explores the themes and worlds uniting the entire King canon,
while brushing up against some of his most iconic and beloved stories.”
The King
“metaverse” features three Maine towns: Castle Rock, Derry, and Jerusalem’s
Lot. And we know they all exist together because sometimes characters in one
will reference another. In Shawshank Redemption, for instance, the
narrator once lived in Castle Rock before getting incarcerated, but it’s never
stated which town Shawshank is located in. Shawshank is then referenced in
other King works, including The Body, which was adapted into the film Stand
by Me.
Like
many of the towns in the King metaverse, Castle Rock is a focal point for
supernatural and demonic activity. Not all of King’s works are horror or
fantasy based, but they do tend to skew in that direction. Why this occurs is
unclear, but it’s been the setting for a lot of creepy events.
According
to the Stephen King wiki (since I didn’t want to forget any), the books The
Dead Zone, Cujo, Bag of Bones, The Dark Half, Needful
Things, The Body, The Sun Dog, and Lisey’s Story take
place there. This doesn’t include the number of short stories that also take
place in part in Castle Rock, including the excellent “The Man in the Black
Suit.”
The
teaser trailer references other King works though, including Misery, IT,
‘Salem’s Lot, and The Shining. These stories don’t take place in
Castle Rock (‘Salem’s Lot obviously takes place in Jerusalem’s Lot), so
what is the connection for the show?
Since
the three Maine towns are all in the same universe, they all reference each
other. Under the Dome takes place in the neighboring town of Chester’s
Mill. 11/22/63, which was recently adapted into a series by Hulu, also
references the town.
Source:
StephenKing.com
You can
see how all the stories connect in an amazing flowchart created by tessiegirl.
So it’s
possible that Hulu and Bad Robot will be using the town as a cross-section to
visually connect all of King’s works. The books already connect them, so to
create a series that does it in some fashion is just the next logical step,
especially in a post-Marvel Cinematic Universe world.
This
also comes before the release of The Dark Tower film, which is due out
on July 28, 2017. The film is a sequel to the seven-book series, which provides
a medium in which a lot of King’s stories are connected. Being able to travel
through time and space will allow that. For example, Randall Flagg from The
Stand is one of the main characters in the fourth Dark Tower book.
It’s also theorized that the creatures from The Mist (the novella not
the film) came from another dimension via the Dark Tower.
So
those with only cursory knowledge of King’s works, or who have only seen the
film adaptations, may not know that most take place in the same universe
already. To what extent that’ll be explored in Castle Rock, or how
they’ll connect in the world of the show remains to be seen.
Regardless,
I’d recommend exploring these connections. King has been writing for decades,
so it goes more in-depth than what I can describe here. You can start with The
Dark Tower series on Amazon, or from the beginning of Castle Rock’s history
with The Dead Zone.
Carli
Velocci:
Carli
is an entertainment writer for Geek. When she's not burying herself in books,
she's buying more books. You can see her work at Gizmodo, the Boston Globe,
Polygon, ZAM, and Vice.
