It’s turning into a bit of a golden age for Stephen King. IT cleaned up at the box office last year, with the sequel currently filming with an all-star cast. On top of that, there’s an interesting sounding adaptation of Pet Sematary currently being shot and a fresh take on The Dark Tower in development. Given all these lucrative King-related projects, then, it’s perhaps no surprise that Hulu has officially renewed psych-horror hit Castle Rock for a second season.
The show, which is currently midway through its first season, is based on characters and settings from various Stephen King stories. For example, we have Diane “Jackie” Torrance, the niece of the famously axe-happy former (and current and future) resident of the Overlook Hotel, Bill Skarsgard as an inmate of Shawshank State Penitentiary and Alan Pangborn, a King character who’s cropped up in the The Dark Half, The Sun Dog and Needful Things. Given that every studio wants their own cinematic universe, it’s smart of Hulu to realize that the Kingverse comes pre-formed and exploit the connections that’ve been present in the author’s books from his earliest works.
Judging by what we’ve seen so far, executive producers Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason, with contributions from J.J. Abrams, have really grasped the slightly off creepiness evolving into outright horror that is Stephen King’s narrative DNA. Critics and audiences alike have responded positively to it as well, and personally, I can’t wait to see what horrors from King’s books it unearths next.
The first season began on July 25th and is set to wrap up when its tenth episode, “Romans,” airs on September 12th, and given the busy schedules of its stars, I’d expect the second season to drop in the same time frame. With any luck, then, the last installment of Castle Rock will leave us hungry for whatever else is going to happen in the Kingverse next.