AMC announced that it’s giving a green light to a new horror series called NOS4A2 today, which means it might finally be time for us to bust out that Dr. Acula script that’s been floating around in the back of our heads for years. (Or, hey, maybe an undead hockey pic titled The Ghoultender.) But we kid author Joe Hill, whose 2013 book—which is, in case it wasn’t abundantly clear, named after the license plate on a car owned by a vampire—is being adapted into a 10-episode series on the network, with Fear The Walking Dead and Hell On Wheels’ Jami O’Brien handling showrunning duties.
Despite its goofy-ass name, Hill’s book is actually pretty great; without ever descending into self-parody, it operates in the same “lousy-but-trying parent runs smack into supernatural evil” vein that his dad, Stephen King, mined so successfully in the 1970s and ’80s. It even manages to make villain Charles Manx—and especially his ability to corrupt and mutate the kids he takes into something less, and more dangerous, than human—into a real figure of menace, despite his questionable choice in vanity plates.
NOS4A2 is expected to debut some time in 2019. Dr. Acula is never happening, probably, unless someone out there can get us in touch with AMC.