Last year it was announced that Stephen King and Stephen Spielberg would be teaming up to adapt novel Under the Dome for the small screen. For those of you who liked this story, and are looking forward to seeing this series get made, you'll be happy to learn that CBS has ordered up 13-episodes! They've also hired Brian K. Vaughan of LOST to write the series, and the director of the Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Niels Arden Ople, to direct the first episode.
Deadline says that there are going to be some changes in the adaptation saying, "I hear the project’s writer Brian K. Vaughan kept the general conceit and many of the characters from the book but also introduced new characters as regulars and tweaked some details and backstory for the existing ones. I hear King has blessed all the changes. As for the book’s much-talked-about ending, which has divided King fans, the series may necessary follow it as in success, CBS would like to do another season."
The show was previously set up at Showtime, but they didn't want to move forward with it for one reason or another. I'm extremely happy that the project is moving forward! The plan is to release it in Summer 2013.
Here's the story description:
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 selectwoman, 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.