It looks like J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot production company has altered our timeline by landing a director. Variety reports that Kevin Macdonald (The Last King Of Scotland, State Of Play) is on board to shoot the first two installments in Hulu’s nine-part miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s 11/22/63. And while it’s unclear whether Macdonald is merely a pawn in the same larger conspiracy that booted previous director Jonathan Demme and got Abrams on board in the first place, it seems all but certain shadowy forces will ensure he maintains every character’s overuse of weirdly anachronistic slang from the ’50s.
As we previously reported, James Franco is set to play the lead in King’s story, about a high school English teacher who travels back in time to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy, presumably in order to change the future and stop Oliver Stone from ever releasing JFK into the world. Chris Cooper is set to play his mentor and friend, the owner of Al’s Diner, and Sarah Gadon has been cast as the librarian who falls in love with Franco’s character, and knows nothing about his screwing around with time.
Hulu doesn’t have a release date set for the miniseries, but it seems likely that whatever is eventually released won’t be the actual show, but rather what those in positions of power want us to see. Of course, if the dailies make it look like the project will be a disaster, the Illuminati will use its own time wormhole, and none of us will remember this project ever existed.