There are but a handful of new streaming series that have experienced as much buzzy excitement and major concerns than writer, showrunner, and producer Ian McCulloch's (Yellowstone, Chicago Fire) Teacup. The new Peacock horror thriller is inspired by Robert McCammon's bestseller, Stinger. The catch? The series strips away much of the book's setting, plot, and characters, making it something altogether different. Except for the horror and intrigue.

In a recent MovieWeb interview, McCulloch was quick to explain that when iconic writer/director James Wan (Saw, Insidious, The Conjuring), who is one of the executive producers on the show, handed him Robert McCammon's book, he plowed through it, though he thought Stinger was "huge." He explained:

"There are dozens of characters, there's an entire town under siege, there are big set pieces. It's an epic. And I'm not a guy who excels at writing big bombastic epics. I'm a guy who excels at writing low-to-the-ground character pieces. The idea was, what if we took this big thing and took away all the big explosions, all the characters, and just made it a very small thing."

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McCulloch added:

We kept the concept of the book, but we brought it down to ground level and made something which we're calling a 'keyhole epic,' meaning a very large story but told through a very small lens.

Stripping Stinger Down to Its Core Close

The captivating series tracks a disparate group of rural Georgians who are forced to unite as a mysterious threat rattles their lives. Starring Yvonne Strahovski (The Handmaid's Tale) and Scott Speedman (Grey's Anatomy), the show also stars Chaske Spencer, Kathy Baker, Boris McGiver, Caleb Dolden, Emilie Bierre, Luciano Leroux, and Rob Morgan as McNab, a gas mask-wearing antagonist.

McCulloch, who was a producer on the Paramount+ hit Yellowstone, fills Teacup with an ample supply of horror, mystery, chills, and great storytelling. Of whittling down the source material to the core horror, he added:

"The idea was that if you take, say, a Radiohead song or a U2 song, and you take away everything , all the instrumentation, all the production value, all the different instruments... You just have a single person with a guitar singing the song. If it still works, it's a great song. And that's what we wanted to see ."

Ian McCulloch Had to Write the Perfect Script or the Show Wouldn't Have Been Made

So, McCulloch took the bestseller and went at it, wondering what would happen if he took away all the book's, "bells and whistles, and start right at ground level. [Would it] still work? I think it still does work. And so that's a credit to the book. But it was taking a chance because Robert McCammon could have said, 'Well, this isn't Stinger."

McCullough also noted that he had informed McCammon from the beginning of something vital. "I said, 'Look, I'm going to write a script. If you don't like it, we don't have to make it. But this is what I want to do.' And to their credit, they said, 'Oh, this is very interesting. Let's go see what we can do with it.'" You can see the results when Teacup streams on Peacock October 10, with two new episodes dropping weekly through Halloween. You can watch it through the link below.

Watch Teacup

Teacup HorrorThriller Sci-Fi Release Date October 10, 2024 Creator(s) Ian McCulloch Seasons 1 Writers Yvonne Strahovski , Scott Speedman , Chaske Spencer Streaming Service(s) Peacock Directors E.L. Katz Expand