The George Romero-Helmed Stephen King Adaptation We’ll Never Get To See – /Film

In an oral history about the "It" miniseries, screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen (who adapted King's "Carrie" for Brian De Palma's classic 1976 feature) lays out how Romero signed onto the project, which was to be "the horror miniseries to end all horror miniseries." Producers brought Romero on board with the aim of adapting Stephen King's classic book and its 1100-odd pages into a whopping eight-to-10-hour program for ABC, to be aired over five nights. They even went so far as to announce the "Monkey Shines" director's attachment to the project (with no cast announced) in 1989. By this point, Romero and King had already worked together on the brilliant EC Comics-throwback anthology horror film "Creepshow" in 1982, so the author was comfortable with the father of the modern zombie film translating his work to the big and small screen alike.

According to Cohen's account of the journey, the suits' intrusion contributed to Romero's departure:

There followed a change in the producers' line-up and a production move to Vancouver, where Tommy Lee Wallace ("Halloween III: Season of the Witch") took the wheel for the truncated adaptation, now airing four hours over two nights instead of the original 10 over five.

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The George Romero-Helmed Stephen King Adaptation We'll Never Get To See - /Film