"...there is, unseen by most, an underworld, a place that is just as real, but not as brightly lit... a darkside." This underworld can now expect its first visitor, as the reboot of George A. Romero's 1980s anthology series Tales From the Darkside, a project that was recently given a pilot order from The CW, has now cast its lead.
Deadline reports that Kris Lemche (Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., Final Destination 3, Ginger Snaps, eXistenZ, Haven) has signed on for the central role in The CW's pilot for the Tales From the Darkside reboot. The original series was episodic and featured a new set of characters in each installment, but in the reboot, we can expect to see one character appear in every episode, one who has ties to The Darkside. This character, named Newman, will be played by Lemche. Newman is "a weathered and tortured young man... the guide to the unsuspecting who come across The Darkside. Newman – a man with his own desperate, wrenching secrets – knows exactly what’s causing the terrifying Darkside Events that drive the series. What he doesn’t know is how to stop them."
Instilling a character like this into the storyline is definitely a departure from the original series, but with Joe Hill (Horns, NOS4A2, Locke & Key) writing and executive producing the project, it could be a move that enhances rather than takes away from the spirit of the original. We'll have to wait and see. Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Heather Kadin, Mitch Galin, and Jerry Golod will also executive produce the reboot. It's also worth noting that Lemche has extensive acting experience within the horror and sci-fi genres. In addition to the credits mentioned above, he also appeared in the popular horror anthology series, Goosebumps, as well as the cult show, Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension (the follow-up series to Eerie, Indiana).
The original Tales From the Darkside was a spinoff of Romero's Creepshow efforts. Like a 1980s cousin of The Twilight Zone, Tales From the Darkside delivered stories brimming with horror, science fiction, and dark humor into living rooms from ’84–’88. An interesting thing to note is that Hill is Stephen King’s son and appeared in the original Creepshow.
Previously, Alex Kurtzman, Bob Orci, and Joe Hill worked together on a TV adaptation of Hill's Locke & Key comic book series at Fox. Though it never moved past the pilot stage at that network, Universal picked it up and is looking to make a feature film with the material, setting Albert Torres (Henry Poole is Here) to write the script.
Stay tuned to Daily Dead for more updates on The CW's Tales From the Darkside reboot.
Kris Lemche:
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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