Source: Entertainment Weekly

After solidifying its place as a film and literary classic, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest could soon be coming to the small screen.

Paul Zaentz, the nephew of producer Saul Zaentz — who helped bring the beloved 1975 movie version of Ken Kesey’s acclaimed novel to life — is working on a series adaptation of it, he has confirmed to Entertainment Weekly. Zaentz recently unveiled plans for a television adaptation during a visit to the filmmaking podcast CK Café.

“I just signed an agreement with Ken Kesey’s widow and family to develop a television series, where we will do it through the point of view of Chief for the first season,” Zaentz said on the show. “After the first season will be what happens to Chief after he escapes [from the hospital].”

Zaentz went on to say that the appeal of the new TV project is telling the story “from a totally different point of view.”

No showrunners or writers are attached to the project yet.

Based on the 1962 novel by Kesey, the film starred Jack Nicholson as a rebellious convict sent to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation, where he encourages his docile companions to take more control of their lives and defy the tyrannical head nurse of the mental institution, Nurse Ratched (played by Louise Fletcher).

Though the movie received widespread critical acclaim and picked up five major Academy Awards — Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (for Nicholson), Best Actress (for Fletcher), and Best Screenplay — Kesey famously disavowed the adaptation because it diverged from his novel, which was told from the perspective of Chief Bromden, a.k.a. Chief.

Will Sampson portrayed the towering half–Native American patient in the Miloš Forman–directed film, a character who transforms from a passive observer into a rebel in his own right. But the adaptation primarily revolved around Nicholson’s character, Randle Patrick “R.P.” McMurphy.

“Ken Kesey was not happy,” Zaentz said of the author’s response to the film on CK Café. “He claims he hated the film, but he also says he never saw the film.”

As for the producer’s stance, he is typically wary of remakes but sees potential in adapting the story for a new format. “What I really despise about remakes is when a person remakes a classic movie,” Zaentz said. “I mean, why would you redo a classic film scene by scene? If there was a film that had a great concept but was a terrible film, then remake that one. But don’t remake Psycho.”

Zaentz added that remaking One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as a TV series would create room for “more character development, introducing more characters, and more subplots.”

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The producer echoed this perspective during a press conference at the 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic this weekend, where he also addressed his plans for the series, per The Hollywood Reporter.

“Over the last 50 years, there have been hundreds of calls from studios, directors, and producers who want to remake the movie, and we would never allow it to be remade if they were just going to do it as Miloš made it,” Zaentz told reporters. “It would be a dishonor.”

He went on to describe his vision for the show’s arc, in which McMurphy would die at the end of the first season and the second season would extend beyond Kesey’s book to explore Chief’s life after his escape from the hospital.

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