EXCLUSIVE: Glen Mazzara, who ran AMC’s smash hit series The Walking Dead for the past several seasons, will now focus on ghosts. He’s in talks to write The Overlook Hotel, a prequel to the Stanley Kubrick-directed The Shining, based on the Stephen King novel. The film is being developed at Warner Bros to be produced by Mythology Entertainment’s Bradley Fischer, James Vanderbilt and Laeta Kalogridis.

While King wasn’t crazy about the Kubrick movie, there are so many iconic images in that movie, and an outsized performance by Jack Nicholson, that this will be a tough act to follow. Mazzara is an interesting choice. He succeeded Frank Darabont on The Walking Dead, and while it seemed he clashed with graphic novel creator Robert Kirkman — he was dropped as showrunner in December — I think he did a fabulous job in moving forward and giving context to what Darabont started. I’ve never seen a series quite like it, and there are plenty of ghostly nuggets from the formative days of that haunted hotel that were dropped in the book and the Kubrick movie that make me eager to see what Mazzara does with this prequel. King, of course, has completed Doctor Sleep, a sequel to his The Shining novel that focuses on an adult Danny Torrance (the Redrum kid). Can’t get enough of this stuff. Mazzara is repped by CAA.