Stephen King’s ‘The Mist’ Gets TV Pilot Order At Spike

Spike has given a pilot order for a drama series based on the classic Stephen King novella The Mist, from Dimension Television. The series tells a harrowing story about a seemingly innocuous mist that seeps into a small town and creates havoc.

This represents an expansion of Spike’s development model. Since re-entering scripted series with the event series Tut, the network has been using a straight-to-series approach: for Tut; drama Harvest, which was ultimately scrapped; and Red Mars, which is gearing up for production. The Mist marks Spike’s first pilot order since the network returned to the scripted space. Spike plans to continue to explore both the pilot and straight-to-series development routes.

The Mist is written and executive produced by Christian Torpe, creator of the hit Danish drama Rita, now finishing its fourth season. He has developed programming for Showtime and AMC.

Dimension previously adapted The Mist as a movie in 2007. The company took a similar approach with its Scream feature franchise, which it remade as a series for MTV, now in production on its second season.

“We are excited to be in business with Spike on their first scripted production pilot and working with the very talented Christian Torpe to further explore Stephen King’s classic novella and bring this riveting series to television audiences,” said Bob Weinstein, cochairman of The Weinstein Company.

Megan Spanjian, VP Scripted TV, brought the project to Torpe and will oversee the project for Dimension TV along with Matthew Signer, EVP Production and Creative Affairs, and Keith Levine, SVP Production and Development.

“We are thrilled to join forces with the incredibly creative Christian Torpe and Dimension Films to develop Stephen King’s enthralling novella to a compelling series unlike anything else on television,” said Sharon Levy, EVP Original Series at Spike.

Torpe is repped by ICM Partners and Elizabeth Robinson at Artists in Residence.