How Stephen King’s ‘11.22.63’ came to be a miniseries

Stephen King is convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

He made that quite clear in 11/22/63, his 2011 time-travel thriller that chronicles one man’s attempt to change history by preventing the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Bridget Carpenter — the writer/producer who developed the new miniseries version of King’s acclaimed bestseller — used to accept the Lone Gunman Theory as fact, too.

“But after two years of working on Stephen’s story, I don’t believe it anymore,” she says. “There were too many strange things surrounding Oswald for me to believe he did it completely alone.”

Carpenter, the executive producer and showrunner for 11.22.63 (which debuts Monday — Presidents Day — on Hulu), suspects now that Oswald had to have been connected to the CIA, that maybe he went rogue in Dallas on the morning of Nov. 22, 1963, that a massive cover-up was organized to hide the embarrassing truth.

“Stephen and I have a friendly, loving, ongoing disagreement about it,” Carpenter says.

The author treats her like she is such a naive child.

“He just shakes his head at me,” she says. “Sometimes, when we trade emails about some detail about the show, he’ll end with a P.S.: ‘Oswald acted alone.’ ”

The eight-episode miniseries, part of which was filmed last year in North Texas, doesn’t presume to be the last word on the subject. It doesn’t even try to convince viewers which assassination theory to believe.

What it does aim to deliver — and it succeeds — is an epic adventure that’s part time-travel fantasy, part historical thriller, part love story.

James Franco stars as Jake Epping, a high school English teacher from present-day Lisbon Falls, Maine, who has been given the opportunity to “undo” the JFK assassination.

But it won’t be as easy as popping back to Dallas on the day of the tragedy and tipping off authorities about Oswald. It won’t be as easy as materializing on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, just in the nick of time to wrestle Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle out of his hands.

As Jake discovers, there’s nothing easy about changing history.

For starters, the “rabbit hole” time portal through which he travels — originating from the back of a greasy-spoon diner, of all places — takes him directly to Oct. 21, 1960. That means Jake will have three long years to kill as he awaits his chance to save the day.

Another issue that must be addressed: What if any one of the myriad conspiracy theories is true? What if Oswald hadn’t acted alone? Or what if Oswald were, as he claimed, somebody else’s “patsy”? If so, taking out Oswald won’t mean saving Kennedy.

So Jake will have to become something of a detective, stalking Oswald during the months before the shooting, as he tries to determine whether the shooter acted alone or was part of a conspiracy.

Bear in mind that Jake is a teacher, not a soldier or a spy or even much of a JFK/Oswald expert, meaning there’s a steep learning curve as he investigates, tries to determine his best course of action and works up the courage to kill the would-be killer.

There’s also the pesky problem that history doesn’t want to be changed. The past is almost a supernatural presence in 11.22.63, often placing obstacles in Jake’s way to keep him from tampering with events, especially when his actions will cause major history book rewrites.

The original plan for 11.22.63 was to become a feature film directed by Jonathan Demme, although it soon became clear that there was too much story in King’s 849-page book to compress satisfyingly into a two-hour movie.

Then J.J. Abrams, of Lost and Star Wars: The Force Awakens fame, stepped in with a plan for a more expansive miniseries approach.

“A television landscape, with multiple episodes so that you don’t have to shoehorn everything in, is the ideal medium for Stephen’s story,” says Carpenter, whose past TV credits include Friday Night Lights and Parenthood. “Television gives you the time you need to let the characters come alive.”

Parts filmed in Dallas

Most of the series was filmed in Toronto, but Carpenter brought production to North Texas in October for several key scenes shot around Dealey Plaza and inside the Texas School Book Depository.

They also filmed in the apartment building where Oswald once lived. (There were daily news updates about Dallas-area traffic disruptions during filming.)

“We felt it was essential to be there,” Carpenter says. “We had incredible designers who probably, for much less money, could have re-created the look of Dealey Plaza — and our financial people were encouraging it. But I was adamant that we had to be there.

“There is something about Dealey Plaza that feels haunted to this day. History feels very close. It’s part of our national memory, our national consciousness.

“We felt that shooting anywhere else just wasn’t an option.”

This story was originally published February 12, 2016 at 11:49 AM with the headline "How Stephen King’s ‘11.22.63’ came to be a miniseries."