New Stranger Things Is Coming, and It's a Stephen King Adaptation with Ben BarnesImage credit: Netflix, Legion-Media

Don’t mourn Stranger Things for too long as its best alternative is rising, and it has the King of Horror written all over it. After a spectacular nine-year run, Stranger Things is slated to

Don’t mourn Stranger Things for too long as its best alternative is rising, and it has the King of Horror written all over it.

After a spectacular nine-year run, Stranger Things is slated to end next year with Season 5. Netflix will lose its main breadwinner series, and fans will mourn their favorite TV show… But as luck would have it, they don’t need to despair as another Stranger Things is rising on the horizon: darker, crueler, and written by King himself.

Netflix is on its own in finding the substitute, though.

What’s Stephen King ’s The Institute About?

New Stranger Things Is Coming, and It's a Stephen King Adaptation with Ben Barnes - image 1

The plot of the King of Horror’s 2019 novel The Institute might sound somewhat familiar for Stranger Things fans. You see, there’s a secret organization that kidnaps gifted children and locks them in a remote facility, using physical and psychological torture to awaken their abilities and take them to the next level. Those who pass the tests are then “graduated” to serve the organization in its sinister design.

A boy’s parents are silently murdered at night, and he’s taken to that weird place everyone calls “the Institute.” Upon learning the truth about it, he decides to escape and seek help from the local police force — where, fortunately, a noble new officer has recently started work. If anyone can stop the Institute’s vile work, it’s him… Or so the young boy believes. But the Institute’s spies are everywhere.

The Institute Gets Its Own TV Show Soon

New Stranger Things Is Coming, and It's a Stephen King Adaptation with Ben Barnes - image 2

Unless you’ve never even heard of Stranger Things, it’s really easy to see the parallels between Netflix’s show and Stephen King’s work: the Institute is similar to the Hawkins Lab in that it experiments on gifted children for its own purposes; and Tim Jamieson, the police officer the kidnapped boy relies on, is very much like Jim Hopper. See? We promised you it’ll be the new Stranger Things!

What’s more exciting is that The Institute is getting its own TV show: the project has been officially greenlit at MGM Plus. While details and release date are yet undisclosed, we have learned one major thing so far, and it’s exciting: Ben Barnes is set to portray the police officer Tim Jamieson, making him one of the two protagonists.

Barnes and King are a combo we never knew we needed, but a very welcome one!

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