Where to watch Stephen King's 11.22.63? James Franco-starrer makes for a perfect weekend binge
Stephen King's works have been adapted for film and TV for some time now. His extensive and riveting novels have received the AV treatment, and one of them is '11.22.3.' The series features an English teacher traveling back in time to stop the assassination of JFK. What's better for fans is that the eight-episode limited series is now available for streaming on Netflix.
Adapted for TV by J.J. Abrams, '11.22.63' follows James Franco's Jake Epping's story in 2011. Per Tudum, Epping (Franco) is an empathetic English teacher in the sleepy town of Lisbon Falls, Maine. And the kindness he receives from locals like diner owner Al Templeton (Chris Cooper) keeps him going as he struggles through a divorce."
"But one day at the diner, Al emerges from the back, coughing up blood. When Jake tries to help, Al brushes him off — instead insisting Jake climb through a closet in the diner, stay as long as he needs, then come back. Despite Jake’s confusion at Al’s demand, he proceeds to climb through the closet … only to emerge, on the other side, in the year 1960. Shocked by what he’s seeing, Jake sprints back through the closet to the present, where Al finally reveals his secret." The cast also includes Sarah Gadon, Josh Duhamel, T.R. Knight, Cherry Jones, Annette O’Toole, George MacKay, Lucy Fry, and Daniel Webber.
Previously, the showrunner Bridget Carpenter shed light on the making of the series. "I would say that I just have confidence, and I think everybody just had confidence in the material period," Carpenter explained to SlashFilm. "I think that they would have been open to making it open-ended, but I think that the story has such a definitive ending, I thought it would be most satisfying dramatically to go, "and we are done."
Carpenter also shared why King's adaptations work better as a miniseries. "I would say that it is the depth of his character work, his characters, and the worlds that he creates are worlds you want to live in," the showrunner said. "There's something about the singular characters. You sit up and lean into them. You also feel a recognition to them and almost a kinship. So I think he has that kind of great trick that great writers have and he has in such a particular way. It's both a recognition and something new, so you want to continue learning more about them. I just think it's character and world. When you want to live in a world, you want to live in it for longer than an hour and a half."
'11.22.63' is streaming on Netflix.
