As often happens periodically, Stephen King is back in fashion. HBO has released, with notable success, a new prequel, It is in series formatfrom ‘It’. And a couple more adaptations coincide on the big screen, ‘Chuck’s life‘ and ‘The long march‘, with a new version of ‘Pursued‘ around the corner. However, there are some of his works that resist adaptation. ‘The eyes of the dragon’ is one of the most unique cases.
What is it about? The fantasy ‘The Eyes of the Dragon’ was published in 1984 and is one of his first exceptions to the pure horror universes that King had been generating since ‘Carrie’: a novel that mixes political intrigue, magic and a fictional universe in line with what he would later do, in a much more sophisticated way, in ‘The dark tower‘. The novel tells the story of the fictional kingdom of Delain, where the throne is marked by the struggle between two brothers, Peter and Thomas, and the dark power of the evil wizard Flagg (there is a connection, in fact, with ‘The Dark Tower’).
Why is it special? It is a more accessible and less violent fantasy than his other books, designed for a broader audience and with an adventurous approach that distances itself from the crudeness of other books. It is this same uniqueness that has made it difficult to adapt, since it demands a certain visual finish that is not cheap to achieve. The mixture of classic fantasy elements with psychological suspense and King’s own tension also makes it a work that is difficult to pigeonhole. And we already know how little that is liked in Hollywood.
First attempt. The first serious attempt to adapt “The Eyes of the Dragon” was through an animated film. It was going to be produced by the French studio WAMC Entertainment, it was announced in the late 90s to be released around the year 2000. It was a very ambitious project in terms of budget, estimated at around 45 million dollars, something unusual for an animated film that was not strictly children’s at the time.
However, despite the initial investment and the enthusiasm of the parties involved, the production encountered multiple technical and financial difficulties that ended it: deadlines were extended, costs skyrocketed and the creative vision began to blur. Ultimately, the studio ended up losing the rights.
Second attempt. In 2012 it was the turn of Syfy, the cable channel known for adapting with considerable success works that were considered difficult to bring to the general public, such as ‘Dune’. The idea here was to use the miniseries format that had worked for other Stephen King adaptations such as ‘The Tommyknockers’, ‘The Store’, ‘It’ or ‘Apocalypse’. However, the project did not advance much and neither creative teams nor anything that went beyond the pre-production phase were firmly proposed.
Third attempt. And Hulu arrived in 2019. There was some commotion, because the showrunner assigned was going to be Seth Grahame-Smith, who as a writer has had a couple of hits like ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’ and ‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’, but who as a screenwriter has had a somewhat erratic career: he was assigned to sequels to ‘Gremlins’ or ‘Bitelchús’ a decade ago, and more recently he was the first showrunner from the ‘Green Lantern’ series, but ended up leaving the series. And yes, he produced the recent and successful films that adapted ‘It’ by, precisely, Stephen King.
The project was compared in tone to a kind of ‘Game of Thrones’ for young people. In September 2020, however, Hulu announced the cancellation of production. The reasons were not entirely clear publicly, but there was talk of budgetary difficulties, strategic changes to the platform and the impact of COVID.
We continue waiting. King is so prolific and his name is so attractive to the public that it is not necessary to squeeze every corner of his bibliography in search of material to adapt: there is plenty. ‘The Eyes of the Dragon’, however, is a relatively strange piece in his work: we may see it adapted if at some point that long-awaited definitive version of ‘The Dark Tower’ is created, since both have multiverses that are easy to connect. Until then, we will continue with the raw and bloody visions of the most commercial King.
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