Stephen King Fans, AMC Has a Special Treat For You (But It Might Be in Production Hell) 

Summary:

• The game Alan Wake tells the story of a writer who comes to the provincial town on vacation, but finds himself drawn into a large-scale battle between Light and Darkness.
• The game is heavily inspired by the works of Stephen King – it is set in a mysterious provincial town, the game opens with a King’s quote, and the main character, the writer, recalls Jack Torrance from The Shining.
• In 2022, AMC bought the rights to film Alan Wake as a series, but there has been no news about the project for almost two years, as it is likely stuck in production hell.

Writer Alan Wake and his wife Alice arrive in the small town of Bright Falls, which seems to have absorbed the best ideas about cozy provincial towns. Officially, they are on vacation, but in reality, Alice hopes that a change of scenery will help Alan overcome his creative crisis.

Neither of them could have imagined that Bright Falls would become a battleground between Light and Darkness, and that the key to all events would be the novel Departure, which Wake himself would write under the influence of the powerful Dark Presence.

This is where the plot of Remedy Entertainment's Alan Wake begins, which can’t be missed if you value a well-thought-out plot in games, and also if you are a fan of Stephen King.

Stephen King's Work Is a Major Inspiration for Alan Wake

So what does Stephen King have to do with this? Well, Remedy took a lot of inspiration from King's stories. They often take place in small towns in Maine, and the main characters are often writers with varying degrees of tragic fates.

The parallels are literally obvious: the game opens with a quote about the nature of nightmares from King's essay.

And at one point, Wake even remembers Jack Torrance from The Shining breaking down a door with an axe. It feels as if Bright Falls itself belongs to the universe of King's novels.

As all fans of the horror genre know, the reason for such a large number of King adaptations lies in the exceptional cinematography of his stories, which easily translate to the screen.

Of course, a successful game with an intricate plot in the spirit of Stephen King works could not go unnoticed by movie studios.

Alan Wake Rights Purchased by AMC

In 2022, Remedy Entertainment published a video on YouTube to mark the 12th anniversary of the release of Alan Wake.

The authors of the project announced that they had sold the rights to the TV adaptation of the game to AMC, best known for The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad production.

However, there has been no news about the Alan Wake adaptation for almost two years, even after the successful release of Alan Wake 2 in 2023, so it is quite possible that the project is stuck in a scary and dusty place called Production Hell.

Fans of the game (and Stephen King) can only wait and hope that one of the most outstanding games of recent years gets a worthy adaptation.