THE DEAD ZONE executive producer Michael Piller
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Piller talks process of translating DEAD ZONE to series TV

In an interview with CINESCAPE magazine, carried in out July issue, Michel Piller has more than a few things to say about his toils translating Stephen King's DEAD ZONE from page to television. All the while, laboring in the shadow of the classic 1983 Christopher Walken film.

ZONE, if you'll recall, tells the story Johnny Smith (Anthony Michael Hall) who gains psychic powers but looses his fiancé (DEEP SPACE NINE's Nicole De Boer) after a horrific car accident.

"In terms of why I think that it will make a good TV series, if you look at the novel it's about a man on a classic quest to find out how he fits into this world," Piller told our own Eric Moro. "It's the quest of us all. But in his case, he has all of these remarkable powers. He's been robbed of everything he ever wanted the girl he loves, the job he had and it's not easy to get back. So, if you look at the novel itself, it's quite episodic. I think that Stephen King has left us extraordinary room to explore the world [Johnny] lives in. That's why we're using the novel as the structure for the first season. We plan to lead the audience who really loves the book, who really loves the movie into this experience. If they love the movie, they're really going to get the chance to take it from the beginning to the end in a detail that the movie just didn't have time to do."

For the full story, including our interviews with De Boer and Hall about their staring roles and hopes for USA's DEAD ZONE series (it starts June 16) pick up a copy of July's CINESCAPE magazine.