Immediately after hitting it big with his screenplay for SCREAM, Kevin Williamson began developing ideas for television series, and most of his credits for the last 17 years have been for creating TV shows, the most successful of which have been DAWSON'S CREEK and THE VAMPIRE DIARIES.
Williamson's latest project is a series adaptation of Karl Alexander's 1979 novel TIME AFTER TIME, which was the basis of a movie released that same year that was directed by Nicholas Meyer and starred Malcolm McDowell, Mary Steenburgen, and David Warner.
The synopsis:
H.G. Wells races through time to catch Jack the Ripper!
London 1893 is home to a killer with a macabre nickname… and also to a visionary genius who would write The Time Machine. But what if H.G. Wells' invention wasn't fiction? And what if Jack the Ripper escaped capture fleeing his own time to take refuge in ours – with Wells himself in pursuit?
In modern-day San Francisco, the Ripper finds our violent age to his liking. Wells dislikes the brave new world of fast food and television, far from the utopia he envisioned. But he is cheered by the emancipation of women, particularly one irresistible banker.
Williamson developed the expansion on Alexander's work at Warner Bros. TV and it has now been picked up by ABC with a script commitment. Williamson will write the script for the show's pilot and will be executive producer if/when it goes into production.
While the serial killer suspense angle isn't mentioned in this description –
Using the 1979 novel and movie as a starting point, Time After Time will chronicle the epic adventures of young H.G. Wells and his Time Machine.
– it's tough to imagine that Williamson, being the genre fan and writer that he is, would play down the role of Jack the Ripper. It will be interesting to watch this one continue to develop. In the meantime, I have Cyndi Lauper's 1983 song stuck in my head.