News Stephen King adaptations Two Previously Announced Stephen King Adaptations Appear to Be Dead Thankfully, about four million other Stephen King adaptations remain By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on January 5, 2026 Credit: Kevin Payravi, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Kevin Payravi, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons While several Stephen King adaptations have made it to a screen near you lately (I’m looking at you, The Running Man, IT: Welcome to Derry, and The Long Walk), there are at least two adaptations that seem to have fallen to the wayside. The first is The Talisman, a series of fantasy books King wrote with Peter Straub. Back in 2021, we found out that the Duffer Brothers were attached to adapt The Talisman novels into a series for Netflix, but in an interview with CBR for Stranger Things, Ross Duffer shared that “sadly, Talisman is no longer at Netflix, so we’re not involved.” The wording there is interesting, because it doesn’t mean that the project is completely dead, just that it’s no longer a project at Netflix. The Duffers, however, will also no longer be working for Netflix. The two signed a deal with Paramount last summer that begins when the pair’s Netflix deal ends in April 2026. That doesn’t necessarily mean they couldn’t be involved with an adaptation, though, of course, they said they aren’t at the moment regardless. Whatever the case, it appears certain that the brothers will not be working on The Talisman, whether or not the project continues on elsewhere. At least we know that as of July 2025, King is “almost done” writing a third Talisman novel, which is based on an idea he and Straub talked about before Straub’s death in 2022. The other project—the CW’s proposed adaptation of King’s short story, “The Revelations of ‘Becka Paulson”—is very definitely dead. In it, a woman accidentally shoots herself in the head with a nail gun but is totally, totally fine, except for the fact she now talks to a manifestation of Jesus who wants her to stop an apparent apocalypse. The CW announced the project way back in July 2020, but Matt Webb Mitovich broke the news via his newsletter, Matt’s Inside Line, that the network dropped the series after it was acquired by Nexstar in 2022. As part of that acquisition, the CW has moved away from scripted series (which includes canceling all of the Arrowverse shows) and is turning toward reality television and sports. ‘Becka Paulson, it seems, was also in Nexstar’s crosshairs. While these two projects are dead or at least delayed, don’t fret: there’s sure to be more King adaptations on the horizon, including Mike Flanagan’s takes on The Dark Tower series and Carrie. [end-mark] The post Two Previously Announced Stephen King Adaptations Appear to Be Dead appeared first on Reactor.