Teacup: Original Book Wasn't the Showrunner's 'Cup of Tea,' But His Changes Were Embraced By the Author

The showrunner behind Peacock's upcoming horror thriller Teacup series confirmed that he wasn't a fan of the original book, leading to many changes for its television adaptation.

Peacock's newest show, starring Yvonne Strahovski and Scott Speedman, follows a small group of families who become trapped on a farm in rural Georgia and are forced to confront a mysterious and deadly threat.

The show is actually based on a 1988 sci-fi book by Robert McCammon called Stinger. That story follows an entire town in Texas that is thrust further into chaos when an alien hunter and its technology crash lands.

Needless to say, don't expect that premise to play out accurately in the new streaming series.

Peacock's Teacup is Vastly Different Than the Original Book

The Direct participated in a roundtable discussion for Peacock's upcoming horror thriller streaming series Teacup at San Diego Comic-Con 2024, where showrunner Ian McCulloch revealed how his adaptation compares to the original book.

McCulloch admitted that he "did not stick to the book" when adapting it to screen and how the original book "[wasn't his] cup of tea:"

"I did not stick to the book... When the producer, Atomic Monster, James Wan's company, came to me, they said, 'Hey, do you have any interest in adapting this book?' And I read the book, and I went, 'Well, this isn't my cup of tea.'"

Instead, the filmmaker thought it best to just "[flip] it all on its head," changing the "cast of an entire town" to just "three families:"

"But then I thought, What if I just flipped it all on its head? What if I took everything that was big and made it small? What if I took the cast of an entire town and made it about three families? What if I took the location of an entire town and made it a secluded farm, and it all kind of came together? And so it was about keeping the conceit and some of the ideas that inspired me, but everything else went out the window…"

Even with all of those changes, production company Atomic Monster and original author Robert McCammon were completely on board:

"… None of that would have worked if Atomic Monster hadn't been on board with that. And really, none of that would have worked if Robert McCammon, who had written the book, wasn't on board with that. So I had conversations with him. I said you're a maximalist writer. I'm a minimalist writer. This is what I want to do. And you know, to his credit, he was on board. He came to set, he had a blast."

Actress Yvonne Strahovski, who portrays Maggie Chenoweth and serves as a producer, revealed that the most unique experience for her on the series "was the last two episodes" and how the show really challenged her in a surprising way:

"For me, the most unique [experience] was the last two episodes. They're really something else. I mean, I've been doing this for 20 years, and I don't often feel like perhaps I'm going to be super challenged just because I've done so much, sort of carrying a lot of emotional weight for certain characters and different shows and things. And this definitely raises the bar for me, for sure, which was both surprising and very exciting."

For McCulloch, the entire experience was unique "because this is [his] first show," one that was "the best job [he's] ever had:"

"I would say the entire experience because this is my first show. As you can tell, I am not a spring chicken, and the most unique thing about it was that I had really high expectations of what I wanted the experience to be. I've worked a lot of jobs in a lot of industries, and I didn't want this to feel like a job, and it exceeded every single expectation. It was the hardest job I've ever had, but it was also the best job I've ever had. So yeah, the whole thing was unique. Like, I'm still--we finished production, what, a month and a half ago, and I'm still, like, I gotta go back to summer camp."

Scott Speedman, who brings James Chenoweth to life, noted how he feels the strong character work and emotional core of the series will really help the show stand out, even if "The genre elements do take a while to take off:"

"When watching these shows, it's always surprising to me what becomes very successful... Something like 'The Bear,' we didn't know that was gonna pop off the way it did. And I think that really comes down to the relationship, the people, the right casting, and all of the elements coming together. And I think it's not much more than that here. I think there's just a lot of the right people making the right show. And I think there is a broad appeal once we get into it... I think about how emotional this show gets and how the genre elements take a while to take off, but once they do, it's full-on. It is very thrilling."

Teacup starts streaming on Peacock on October 10.