"Under The Dome" is actually a dark comedy/horror novel, and now it's a movie.
We've been reading Stephen King's new book, "Under The Dome", for the past week or so here at Comedy Examiner headquarters, and we were going to hold off on writing a review-- yes, the Comedy Examiner was going to write a review; the book's a dark comedy/horror in the vein of "Needful Things", and it's awesome-- until we finished the book. Now, though, some news has arrived that indicates Spielberg and King are teaming up to turn the book into a film. How so? Read on for the details, my gentle Examiner readers...
Like it says in the intro, "Under The Dome" turned out to be the first "dark social comedy/commentary" that Stephen King's written since "Needful Things"; it's awesome. We're planning on running a review once we finish the book, but for now, let's look at the news that Steven Spielberg and King are teaming up to turn the book into a movie:
Steven Spielberg and Stephen King are joining forces to develop a limited series based on King's just-released supernatural thriller "Under the Dome." DreamWorks TV has optioned the book and is looking to set it up as an event series, likely for cable.
That's from a Variety story on the matter, and we couldn't be more excited. For those of you unawares of the plot, here's the description from the book's jacket:
On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mill, 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.
As for more news on the movie, let's go back to the Variety article and see what they're saying:
DreamWorks is starting to meet with writers for the project. The plan is to set a writer before shopping the skein to prospective buyers.
Spielberg and King have worked together in the past, developing a screen adaptation of King's 1984 novel "The Talisman," on which Spielberg has had the option for more than 20 years. That project has been developed as a feature, and it came close to being done as a mini for TNT a few years ago until it was tabled for budgetary reasons.
We're fans of Stephen King here at the Comedy Examiner's Office, but we were surprised when we started reading "Under The Dome": it's actually really funny. Stephen King books wouldn't normally fall under our "jurisdiction", but the tone of the book-- particularly the barely-disguised parody of Bush and Cheney that are represented in the Chester's Mill leadership in the novel (that's the town "the Dome" encapsulates)-- is overtly, darkly comical. King fans shouldn't worry, though: there's still plenty of horrorific goings-on to keep your dreams haunted. Here's King talking about that Bush/Cheney connection in the book:
"When the idea came up again in my mind, we'd been under Bush II for five years at the time and one of the things that struck me about the whole Bush administration and the Iraq adventure ... everybody argues about whether we were right or wrong about the way we responded to world events after 9/11. One thing I think that not even Republicans that are on the right side of the political spectrum can argue with is that the Bush administration was spectacularly inept. They weren't good even at what they tried to do. Assume for a moment that it was a total mistake, which I do, then you say, even people who are mistaken knew better than that if they have a brain in their head. So I thought, wouldn't it be interesting to take the Bush-Cheney dynamic and put it in this small town?"
The tone that King brings to the novel is very similar to the dark social commentary that he brought to "Needful Things" back in the mid-90's, and all comparisons to "The Simpsons Movie" that the novel's received? Unwarranted: the basic premise is where the similarities begin and end. Furthermore, King refuted the ideas of "idea-borrowing" on his own website. Here's what he said:
There’s another reason for publishing this on the website. Several Internet writers have speculated on a perceived similarity between Under the Dome and The Simpsons Movie, where, according to Wikipedia, Homer’s town of Springfield is isolated inside a large glass dome (probably because of that pesky nuclear power plant). I can’t speak personally to this, because I have never seen the movie, and the similarity came as a complete surprise to me…although I know, from personal experience, that the similarity will turn out to be casual. Unless there’s deliberate copying (sometimes known as “plagiarism”), stories can no more be alike than snowflakes. The reason is simple: no two human imaginations are exactly alike. For the doubters, this excerpt should demonstrate that I was thinking dome and isolation long before Homer, Marge, and their amusing brood came on the scene.
If you haven't already seen it, here's the "trailer" that someone made to promote the novel:
Stay tuned to the Comedy Examiner's Office for our "Under The Dome" review (which will arrive as soon as we're through reading that 1100 page doorstopper) as well as future news regarding the Spielberg/King adaptation of the novel. Here's hoping it ends up on HBO, rather than, say, ABC: we want to see all the darkness in the book brought to life, not muted by overzealous TV censors. But, what did you think? Are you reading "Under The Dome"? Are you ready for another King adaptation? Sound off in the comments section below, folks: we wanna know what you think!
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(photo: lvrj.com)
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