Stephen King News, in Brief

Three tidbits of Stephen King news, listed in descending order of likely interest from this blog's readers. All of my news comes from this site.

1.) When "Lost" wraps up, (which I think happens at the end of next season), J.J. Abrams (director of Cloverfield, Star Trek) and Damon Lindelof aim to begin work on bringing Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series to the big screen. Seven books... seven movies?

2.) This Sunday's "Family Guy" is devoted to Stephen King. This from the network's description:

Sunday, May 10
FAMILY GUY (9:00-9:30 PM ET/PT) – “Three Kings” – Season Finale

"After Peter discovers the writing of Stephen King, he imagines his family and friends in three of King’s most famous works. First, Peter, Quagmire, Cleveland and Joe – as 12-year-olds – travel along a railroad track on a journey of self-discovery narrated by Richard Dreyfuss (guest-voicing as himself). Second, Brian is injured in a bad car crash only to be “rescued” by his “number one fan,” Stewie. Finally, Cleveland and Peter become fast friends in prison."

"Family Guy"'s gotten better (and weirder) each season (culminating in the episode where Peter discovers the joys of the song "The Bird's the Word" -- this episode very nearly killed me), so I'm really looking forward to this one. The show's not afraid to make an obscure cultural reference, so it'll be interesting to see how "inside" McFarlane gets with his King jokes.

3.) November sees the release of King's newest novel entitled "Under the Dome," the description of which sounds as if it were inspired by 2008's "The Simpson's Movie":

On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mills, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as “the dome” comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when—or if—it will go away.

Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens—town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing—even murder—to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out.

This thing's 1,120 pages and comes out November 20th.