It Should Be A Movie By Now: 11/22/63

A time when the United States, and probably much of the world stood still, the death of JFK took everyone by surprise. Sure there have been a few films that have touched on the life of JFK and you might think that I’m just adding to the pile up – but 11/22/63 is different.

I rarely ever read books, mainly because I just don’t have the time. Yet, Stephen King apparently knows how to hook me. For whatever reason this book sucked me in, and was one helluva a suspenseful ride that I just couldn’t put down. The entire time I was reading it, I pictured people who I would cast for Jake, Al, and all the subsequent characters that were intertwined into the well written story. Wait, have any of you read this? Am I jumping the gun … ok, let’s explain some things real quick.

If you’re like me and just don’t read books all that often, I want to make sure you understand what this is about before I give my case for why it should be a film. The book stars Jake Epping, a divorced high school GED english teacher who leads a fairly normal life. Then that normal life becomes anything but, when Jake’s friend Al, a owner of the local diner, introduces him to a secret. That secret leads to Jake traveling back in time to Jolie, Texas and living a completely different life. Jake’s goal is simple, change the future – figure out a way to stop Lee Harvey Oswald. Once he sets out on his path, he finds himself questioning everything, especially whether or not he should allow JFK to die.

The face only a mother could love … maybe.

Early on when I started to read this book (granted it was practically 6 months after it was released) people were already clamoring on about wanting a movie or television show. While I would be stoked about either one, I think that a movie would be best suited to pull this off. Yes, I have a reason for stating that…did you ever watch the short lived show Alcatraz? It was the one with Hurley and Dr. Grant tracking down inmates that mysteriously kept showing up in the future. If you didn’t I wouldn’t be all that surprised. The concept was there, they had a bunch of back story and history to mull through but the audience just didn’t buy into it. Time traveling, at least to me, is better utilized within the constraints of the cinematic universe.

You have to give credit to the man on this one – the amount of time he took to make sure he had every last little detail accounted for and as accurate as possible is so evident. The way that he builds the story and all of the underlying sub-plots by using the characters’ surrounding environments just adds to the authenticity and puts you directly into each and every scene. 11/22/63 would be a great sci-fi movie without ever having to be visually sci-fi – does that make sense? Think Forever Young but a lot better and in reverse. I’m losing you aren’t I? Ok, I’ll make it simple, people love watching anything to do with JFK and would come out in troves to watch something that had the appeal of time travel, the assassination plot/conspiracy, and was written by Stephen King.

Casting:

I won’t need to put a lot of time into this casting call – I’ve already had this picked for years. Oh, and I feel that there is no need to cast JFK. Every scene he’s in could be used with actual footage as far as I’m concerned. (that and I’m just not a fan of someone so iconic being portrayed by an actor if they don’t have many lines within the dialogue etc.)

Jake Epping – John Hamm

 

Al (the diner owner) – Robert Duvall

 

Sadie – Anne Hathaway

 

Harry Dunning – Jeff Bridges

 

Yellow/Green Card Man (taking liberties here) – James Franco

 

There are other characters that play significant roles, but these are the ones that stood out for me the most.

So naturally before writing this post, I did the research to see what is out there and there is definitely talk about both a television show being put together and a movie that already has a screenplay. I sure hope that these “rumors” are true because this book just begs for the screen. Granted I’m really looking for the theater screen, but if I get a television series out of it – I won’t throw a hissy fit.

UPDATE 9/23/14!

Looks like the book is actually going to be made into a miniseries on Hulu! http://screenrant.com/11-22-63-tv-show-hulu-stephen-king/