How did I ever know?

I don’t know anything about The Talisman, a fantasy novel published by Peter Straub and Stephen King in 1984. After all, given the success of The Lord of the Rings and A Game of Thrones, it could be about anything, right? But as soon as I heard that Steven Spielberg and the Duffer brothers had acquired the rights to turn it into a streaming show, I was pretty sure that whatever it was, it was focused on children.

Steven Spielberg has found his next project: a series adaptation of Stephen King and Peter Straub’s 1984 fantasy novel The Talisman. The 74-year-old director will be executive producing an adaptation of the book for Netflix along with the Duffer brothers, best known for creating Stranger Things for the streamer. The series has been a long time coming, as Spielberg has been interested in bringing the novel to the screen since two years before it was even published, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

That’s a strong level of interest in what is near-worthless intellectual property. Is there really any need to ask what the basis for that interest was?

The series likely appealed to the Stranger Things alumni, as it follows a 12-year-old boy named Jack Sawyer as he travels to an alternate dimension in search of a talisman to save his mother’s life.

Oh, that’s why. Quelle surprise….