Of Stephen King’s recent books, The Outsider is notable for its blending of traditional Kingian horror with the mystery elements of his love of detective fiction. The novel was only released in 2018, but is already heading to HBO in January as an adaptation starring Ben Mendelsohn and Jason Bateman. In fact, the network have now released the first full trailer for the 10-episode series, which you can catch above, providing an intriguing look at a show that will presumably exploit pay cable’s content freedoms to bring The Outsider‘s gruesome story to life.
We get a fairly comprehensive look at the series’ main mystery here, that of how Little League coach Terry Maitland (Bateman) can be arrested for the gruesome murder of an 11-year-old boy, while appearing to have a rock-solid alibi. Mendelsohn plays detective Ralph Anderson, who has to figure out why different elements in the case don’t match up, and how it may connect to a broader mystery involving doppelgängers. We also get to see Cynthia Erivo’s Holly Gibney, a private investigator with unusual gifts, who ends up helping Anderson with the case.
Richard Price is heading up this limited series, and with a background on The Wire, he looks to be a great choice to bring the world of The Outsider to life. From what we see in the trailer, we’re going to get an intense mystery-thriller with echoes of True Detective and Sharp Objects. And as is now to be expected with adaptations of his work, King was quick to praise the series on Twitter, commenting as so:
“The Outsider is one of the best adaptations of my work. Hope you’ll watch it.”
Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time King has said something like this or similar when promoting a series or movie, but in The Outsider‘s case, he might not be exaggerating. Given the impressive cast and crew, and HBO’s involvement, we’re keen to see how it competes with other King properties when it arrives on January 12th, 2020.
Published: Dec 5, 2019 07:03 pm