Sleeping Beauties: Stephen King and Owen King Novel Getting a Pilot at AMC
Sleeping Beauties, the new novel from Stephen and Owen King, isn't out yet, but it's already becoming a TV show!
The return of Stephen King to both big and small screens continues with Sleeping Beauties, the novel co-written with the writer’s son, Owen King. AMC has ordered a pilot, according to Deadline, and a script is being penned by the younger King.
The show has been in talks since before the novel was even published in 2017. This is the first movement we’ve heard regarding the project since it was optioned by Anonymous Content two years ago, which is producing along with Sugar23’s Michael Sugar and Ashley Zalta.
Sleeping Beauties tells the story of a nightmare near future where women suffer from a horrific sleeping disease and how this affects the men of a small Appalachian town and a woman who is mysteriously immune to the disease.
Here’s the full synopsis:
In this spectacular father/son collaboration, Stephen King and Owen King tell the highest of high-stakes stories: what might happen if women disappeared from the world of men?
In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep; they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent; and while they sleep they go to another place … The men of our world are abandoned, left to their increasingly primal devices. One woman, however, the mysterious Evie, is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease. Is Evie a medical anomaly to be studied? Or is she a demon who must be slain?
Set in a small Appalachian town whose primary employer is a women’s prison, Sleeping Beauties is a wildly provocative, gloriously absorbing father/son collaboration between Stephen King and Owen King.
“I’m tremendously excited to see Sleeping Beauties brought to life in a format that will allow the story to be told as it was meant to be told, in all its mystery and drama,” Stephen King said of the announcement.
“We’re so happy to be working with Michael, Ashley, and AMC on Sleeping Beauties,” Owen King said. “We can’t imagine a better match.”
AMC didn’t share details on when cameras might start rolling or when casting would begin, but we’ll make sure to keep you updated as we hear more. In the meantime, here’s a list of all the other Stephen King movies and TV shows currently in development.
John Saavedra is an associate editor at Den of Geek. Read more of his work here. Follow him on Twitter @johnsjr9.
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John Saavedra is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Den of Geek. He lives in New York City with his two cats.