Is A Lawnmower Man TV Series On The Way?
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Is the world ready for more Lawnmower Man? Perhaps a better question is does it need more Lawnmower Man? Either way it appears that a TV show based on the 1992 adaptation of a Stephen King short story may be on the way. Park Entertainment is preparing a package of 26 hour-long episodes that “will combine live-action and some rather state-of-the-art special and visual effects.” David Titcher (The Librarian movies) wrote the pilot episode for what is being described as mix of action adventure and science fiction.
King’s original story and the film adaptation—which was followed, for some reason, by 1996’s The Lawnmower Man II: Beyond Cyberspace—are, at best, loosely related properties.
While the original King short story concerned a man who conjures up an unholy, autonomous lawnmower to cut a clients lawn, before munching down on the grass himself (yes, totally odd), the film version told of a mentally-retarded lawnmower man named Jobe who is coaxed into being a guinea pig for a scientist’s virtual reality experiments, ultimately becoming more intelligent in the process but also evil.
They both certainly feature lawnmowers, and a man who operates them, but after that the similarities are a bit sparse. From the report of the show, it seems to share a far closer kinship with the preceding movies rather than the original source material. Even when the movies came out they were cheesy, the effects were terrible, and their depiction of the virtual reality world seemed out of whack and almost comical. What’s Jeff Fahey up to? Maybe he’s up to reprise his role.
