While WarnerMedia’s streaming service is preparing for its launch of HBO Max next month with a slew of popular titles, such as Friends and the Studio Ghibli films, the upcoming platform has also been aligning itself with high-profile creatives such as Ridley Scott, Issa Rae and Mindy Kaling. It has now just been announced that HBO Max will also include shows based on Justice League Dark and Stephen King’s The Shining from J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot Productions.
According to a press release from WarnerMedia and HBO Max, three one-hour television shows have been ordered from Bad Robot including a spinoff television series called Overlook, a 70s-set series co-written by J.J. Abrams called Duster, and a show drawing from the DC characters in Justice League Dark.
Duster is about a “gutsy getaway driver” who worked for a crime syndicate in the 1970’s Southwest that goes sideways, as detailed in the Thursday announcement. J.J. Abrams wrote the series with LaToya Morgan, who started off as a staff writer on Shameless and Parenthood and has written for Into the Badlands and The Walking Dead.
Overlook will come from the team behind Hulu’s Castle Rock to bring together terrifying stories of the famed hotel from The Shining and feature characters from the legendary Stephen King property. The author will be involved in the Bad Robot and WBTV production set to stream on HBOMax.
Details on the Justice League Dark series are scarce but more information about it will be “revealed soon.” The news could offer an answer to the DC Universe’s scrapped Swamp Thing television series from last summer. The project featuring one of Justice League Dark’s key members was axed suddenly just one week after its first episode released on the DC Universe streaming service.
Justice League Dark is a DC comic book series that debuted in 2011 that also includes John Constantine, Madame Xanadu, the Changing Man, Zatanna, Deadman and Shade. The team of supernatural heroes take on specific situations that operate outside the realm of the Justice League. The DC property will be joining planned television shows for Green Lantern and Strange Adventures.
The Shining spinoff comes on the heels of the box office disappointment of the movie’s sequel Doctor Sleep late last year. Despite its high acclaim, it made just $72.3 million worldwide on a reported production budget of $45 million. A sequel to Doctor Sleep was in works, but has remained up in the air following its bummer commercial performance.
HBO Max is set to launch in May with 10,000 hours of premium content with Warner Bros., HBO, New Line, DC, TNT, Turner Classic Movies, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Crunchyroll and Looney Tunes under its umbrella. Stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more updates on the new streaming platform.
