Summary
As announced at San Diego Comic-Con on July 25, Peacock’s new horror-thriller series,Teacup, will premiere on Thursday, October 10. The streaming service will drop two 30-minute episodes each week through Halloween, making for a complete 8-episode season. Its main cast includes Yvonne Strahovski (The Handmaid’s Tale), Scott Speedman, Chaske Spencer, Kathy Baker, Boris McGiver, Caleb Dolden, Emilie Bierre, and Luciano Leroux.
The show centers around the Chenoweth family, who have rocky relationships with their neighbors as well as within their own household. However, they are all forced to put aside their differences and band together against a mysterious threat on the secluded Georgia farm.Created for televisionby Ian McCulloch,Teacupis based on Robert McCammon’s 1988 novel,Stinger,and produced by Atomic Monster.
SDCC 2024: 10 Biggest Panels On Friday, July 26
The panels at SDCC 2024 on Friday will cover the upcoming seasons of Rings of Power and The Walking Dead, plus Women in Comics and BookTok Tropes.
Screen Rantsits down with McCulloch and stars Scott Speedman and Chaske Spencer atSan Diego Comic-Conto discuss the creative process behindTeacup, as well as its relatable themes of family and relationships.
Setting The Scene For Teacup’s Mysteries
Screen Rant: Ian, what has this adaptation process been like for you, bringingTeacupto life?
Ian McCulloch: The adaptation process was interesting because James Wan’s company, Atomic Monster, came to me and asked if I’d be interested in adapting this book. Stinger is a very large book. It’s big, it’s brash, there’s huge set pieces., and there’s a large cast. It’s an entire town.
I said, “What if I turn it on its head?” We don’t have big set pieces. We don’t have an entire town. We have three families. We don’t have the space of an entire town. We have a single farm, and we basically take the whole thing and turn it down to a simmer, then bring it back up to a boil, but on a very personal and grounded level instead of it being a big spectacle.
Scott and Chaske, talk to me about a little bit about your characters and how they fit into the family dynamic.
Scott Speedman: Well, I play the father. When we meet James, he has betrayed his family and betrayed his wife. I don’t want to get into who and what and how, but that’s a really interesting way to start a character. I was really excited to jump into the story that way.
Chaske and I have this very specific dynamic where we’ve been friends and friendly, and I betrayed him as well. So, it’s really interesting to have to jump into the external forces that come down into the story, and then we’re forced to trust each other as we go.
Chaske Spencer: Yeah, I think Ruben is just dealing with the repercussions of that situation. What I loved about the character is just the drama of that and trying to find those little points to correlate with you and the character. I always love that; it’s the best part about that. With the character, I don’t want to reveal too much, but there’s a lot of drama. It’s great.
Ian McCulloch Approaches Teacup From An Unorthodox Perspective
Ian, can you talk to me about the collaboration process with James Wan?
Ian McCulloch: The collaboration process with James Wan and with Atomic Monster was bar none the best experience I’ve had with executive producers on a show because they trusted me. They would come in and offer their thoughts and their notes, but they trusted me to make the show that I wanted to make. They trusted the vision that I had, and that is not something that happens a lot. I’m extremely grateful and blessed that they were involved in that way.
To some extent, it was hands-off, but it was hands-on when they needed to be to get things done. Not to dictate, but they were just really supportive, which is best of all. S
How did you all stay true to the source material while still making these characters completely your own?
Chaske Spencer: Well, there’s a great roadmap. He wrote amazing scripts, and when you get writing like that, it gives you a specific way to go. I personally like that I can have a roadmap to where I’m going to go with the character and be able to hit those dots along the way. That’s what I really enjoyed about the scripts.
Scott Speedman: Ian has such a unique style, and I’ve been wanting to work with him for years. I’ve read a couple of his projects and thought he was an amazing writer, so when I heard he was doing something in the horror genre, I really wanted to see what that was because that didn’t seem like the exact fit for me. But I knew of his writing, so I thought that if he could bring his elements to a horror genre, that would be really exciting.
I knew it would be character-based. Everybody talks about character-based, and nobody knows really how to do it. Nobody does it, but when he does, it always works if they can pull off that execution. I read three scripts and didn’t even bother reading Stinger because he had his own unique style on this thing. It was all him. There was no need to go and look at the source material. He was the source material by the end of it for me. I read it before I even told you; I snuck a peek from my agent, and then I immediately took him out for lunch. It was under the guise of friendship, but I was just trying to get a job.
For those who may not know who your characters are, did you base your characters on any other iconic characters that are out there? Or did you just go in and do what was on the page and attempt to discover what it was?
Chaske Spencer: I just went on the page and discovered what it was. Like I said, the writing is the roadmap. Just talking with Ian about what he wanted out of the character, I was thrilled about it. It was challenging, what he wanted, but I was really looking forward to trying to do that and put it on the screen.
Scott Speedman: This felt really director-proof in a way. All the writing was right there. It was right there, the tone, the feel, everything. The characters were right there. I knew they would be, but it just kind of popped off the page. The character was right there. I knew immediately when I read it that I could bring something unique to it.
I didn’t really base it on anybody or anything. I just knew that if you kind of dove into the circumstances, you were going to be fine.
Other Shows Like Teacup & Chances Of Echo Season 2
Chaske, I’ve got to ask you this because I was abig fan ofEcho. Would you like to see your character’s story continue, and what would you like to explore further with that character?
Chaske Spencer: Yeah, I’d like to. I don’t know, I would like to see what happens along the lines of the repercussions of what happened in that show and the ramifications for my character. I think
Ian, for those that may be unfamiliar withTeacup, could you give maybe some other shows that fall into this category?
Ian McCulloch: I would say something along the lines of Lost and The Leftovers because there’s a mystery element. You were talking before about staying true to the book, and the thing that I found interesting about this adaptation was that the book exists. You can go read the book, and you know what happens.
My job was, to my mind, “How do I subvert that? How do I make it so that you don’t know what’s going to happen next?” If you were to watch Teacup, and I hope you will, you’ll see that it’s all a mystery. And we’ve solved those mysteries, so we don’t leave you hanging.
About Teacup
Teacup follows a disparate group of people in rural Georgia who must come together in the face of a mysterious threat to survive. Inspired by the New York Times bestselling novel Stinger by Robert McCammon.
The first two episodes ofTeacuppremiere on Peacock on Thursday, October 10, followed by two episodes weekly through Halloween.
Source:Screen Rant Plus
Teacup
Teacup is a horror thriller series that follows a group of people thrust into the middle of rural Georgia who must face off with an unknown threat to stay alive.
