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Robert McCammon's Stinger is a modern classic in sci-fi horror. It debuted in the late 1980s, devouring our bookshelves and winning a Bram Stoker award along the way. When noted horror director James Wan (The Conjuring) had his film/tv studio Atomic Monster up and running, it was one of the first projects he wanted to tackle, despite the massive scope of the story. But when they approached the more relatively grounded TV creator Ian McCulloch after his work on Yellowstone and Chicago Fire to turn Stinger into a TV show, they ran into a problem: He didn't want to do it.

Fast forward to 2024, and Stinger is being adapted by McCulloch as a live-action TV series for Peacock called Teacup. So what happened?

"When Atomic Monster first approached me about creating a series adaptation of Robert McCammon’s Stinger - a no-holds-barred, gargantuan spectacle of a novel along the lines of The Stand, Independence Day and Mars Attacks - to be honest, I didn’t want to throw my hat in the ring," says McCulloch. "I’m not a spectacle writer. I’m a less-is-more writer. I gravitate more toward what are known as keyhole epics. Large stories told through small lenses. Think Signs, The Thing, A Quiet Place."

As McCulloch puts it, however, Stinger had a way of sticking with him. 

"[It] wouldn’t leave me alone. I just couldn’t stop thinking about its razor-sharp premise, how it unfolds over the course of a single harrowing day, and about the relatable and real family McCammon puts center stage," he continues. "That’s when the flash bang-light bulb idea hit…"

That "light bulb idea" provided his 'in' - taking keeping the central conceit of Stinger (an alien bounty hunter arrives in a small town, looking for his prey), but dismissing the sprawling cast and the sprawling set pieces, and make it more about the people.

"The adaptation would be like an acoustic guitar version of, say, a Radiohead song," says McCulloch. "It won’t have the production value, electronic instruments, loops, or synthesized bells and whistles but it will still have the melody, the structure, the lyrics, the real magic at the core, all the stuff that makes a great song a great song."

And that is what sold James Wan, Atomic Monster, Peacock, and author Robert McCammon himself on making what is now Teacup.

"Of course, during production the series changed and evolved. Just as it should. Even the title’s different. Stinger is now Teacup. The reasons for this are too spoilery to share but watch the first few episodes and all will be revealed," says McCulloch. "Point being, the series is now very much its own thing: a puzzle-box mystery, an edge-of-your-seat thriller, a can’t-but-must look horror story, a family drama, a science fiction epic—of the keyhole variety, of course."

"But as singular, strange, and surprising as I hope Teacup is, all you need to do is peel away the layers, characters, situations, and mythology and look behind the thrills, chills, hairpin turns and make-you gasp reveals. Do all that and you’ll see, at its heart, Teacup is still very much standing on the shoulders of Stinger. Just as it should."

Teacup season 1 debuts October 10 on Peacock.

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