Stephen king’s ‘the eyes of the dragon’ in works at hulu & fox 21: ya answer to ‘game of thrones? ’

EXCLUSIVE: For those wondering how they will possibly survive without _Game of Thrones_ after Sunday’s finale, maybe there’s epic fantasy life beyond Westeros. How about an epic fantasy

series adaptation of a bestselling Stephen King novel, one that taps into the mythology of King’s epic _Dark Tower_ and even shares a major villain character from the author’s masterwork,

_The Stand_? It has the requisite faeries, elves and dragons of the fantasy fare — _sans_ the fiery genocide and sexual brutality that was a trademark of _GOT_. Hulu has made a deal to

develop a pilot based on the King novel _Eyes of the Dragon_, which was first published in 1984. Seth Grahame-Smith (_Lego Batman Movie_) is writing the opening episode and serving as the

showrunner. Fox 21 is the studio. Grahame and his KatzSmith partner David Katzenberg will be exec producers along with Bill Haber, Roy Lee and Jon Berg. Hulu competed with Apple for the

rights and won the auction. WATCH ON DEADLINE _Dragon_ takes place in fictional realm of Delain and tells the story of power and the path of two prince brothers. King Roland’s manipulative

magician, Flagg, sees his power threatened when Queen Sasha gives birth to Peter, an heir to the throne. When the queen is pregnant with a second son, Flagg gets her midwife to mortally

wound the queen and so begins his plot to dispose of the future king. Peter brings wine to his father’s bed chambers each night and Flagg poisons the potion and frames the son. The magician

has meanwhile also been manipulating the younger son, Thomas, showing him secret passages where the boy can spy on his father. Thomas sees the murder of the king and the frameup of his

brother, but is torn when Peter is found guilty and locked in an enormous tower. After all with Peter gone, he’s king at age 12. He allows Flagg widespread power that corrupts the kingdom.

Meanwhile, Peter must attempt an escape to thwart Flagg and win back the throne. King stepped out of the horror headspace when he wrote this book in 1984, mainly because he wanted to write

something his kids could read. I wouldn’t say that worked out so well, because Joe Hill and Owen King are cranking out books in the same frightful wheelhouse. King’s hardcore horror fans

screamed bloody murder — even though reviewers liked his literary detour into fantasy — and King addressed all that when he wrote _Misery._ Its plot — an author is stalked by a psycho fan

upset her fave character was going to be killed — was a metaphor about King’s frustration of being shackled to scare fare. The book was attempted as a movie and a series years back; it is a

challenge to adapt. But I can also remember years ago breaking the story that David Benioff & D.B. Weiss had set up the George RR Martin novel series _Game of Thrones_ at HBO: the

ensuing reaction was that Martin wrote it to be impossible to adapt because of all the frustration that author endured writing scripts. Most felt it would never get made. “I am so excited to

be working in the world of Stephen King with with Hulu, which has such a terrific track record with Stephen King adaptations,” Grahame-Smith told Deadline. “The goal for this series is to

feel unlike any Stephen King adaptation before, with this rich underlying source material, and the only true fantasy book he wrote that has kings and swords and princesses. We will honor the

spirit of the book and the legacy.” King’s literary properties are repped by Paradigm.