The aftermath of 9/11 doesn’t seem like a particularly pleasant place to start a television series, but that’s exactly where Seth Grahame-Smith and Greg Berlanti plan to kick off the brand new TV project The Things They Left Behind. The project is based on a short story written by Stephen King that was published back in 2006 as part of a larger volume of short stories. On Tuesday, CBS bought the project, giving The Things They Left Behind a put pilot commitment.
King’s version of The Things They Left Behind follows a young man named Scott who didn’t go in to work at his Twin Towers office on the day of the 9/11 attacks. He's wracked with guilt over the incident, and later begins waking up in his apartment only to find items belonging to his work peers sitting around. The short story was later turned into a short film by Pablo Macho Maysonet IV. You can check out the trailer, below.
The Things They Left Behind may only have nabbed a put pilot commitment, but CBS clearly wants the supernatural project. Deadline says the network landed the potential drama in a “competitive situation,” meaning there was at least one other network sniffing around. It’s no wonder. Berlanti, especially, is a big name, having put together Arrow and The Flash, as well as working on the potential Supergirl project. Seth Grahame-Smith’s no slouch, either, having written the bestsellers Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, as well as the movie screenplay for the latter. With both men on board, the project is in pretty prominent hands.
Grahame-Smith will adapt King’s story for the small screen, which should be a good fit, since the writer at one point was also working on King’s IT adaptation. Grahame-Smith, David Katzenberg, Berlanti and Sarah Schechter are set to executive produce the project.
CBS has already done pretty well with the adaptation of Stephen King’s Under the Dome, so it’s natural that the network would want to bid on another King adaptation. Still, we are pretty far away from The Things They Left Behind moving forward to series, and CBS doesn't have a ton of new slots in its lineup each season. We’ll let you know if or when CBS decides to move forward with the project.
