The Gilded Age's Morgan Spector Starred In This Forgotten Stephen King Horror Series

Fans of "The Gilded Age" know Morgan Spector as the no-nonsense businessman George Russell, but, five years before first appearing on HBO's lavish historical drama, he headlined a lesser-known TV adaptation of Stephen King's "The Mist".

While most people probably think of the 2007 Frank Darabont movie when it comes to adaptations of King's novella, 2017 brought "The Mist" to the small screen for the first time. Airing one 10-episode season on Spike, the series introduced an entirely new group of characters and made numerous other changes to the source material. In place of the original protagonist, David Drayton, Spector starred as Kevin Copeland, a man who fights to protect his family when a thick mist and mysterious apparitions begin terrorizing the residents of Bridgeville, Maine. 

Aside from the new names and faces, Spike's "The Mist" altered King's story by taking place in various locations across the town, rather than being confined to a supermarket. Moreover, the show created a different version of the monsters, which induce severe psychological effects in their victims. Deviating from an original work can be risky, and in the case of "The Mist," it didn't pay off. Overall, critics gave the series mediocre reviews. Holding a 58% critic score and a 45% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, "The Mist" failed to impress the masses, and the show was canceled after its first season.

Although Spike's adaptation of Stephen King's "The Mist" flopped, Morgan Spector was fascinated by the idea of playing Kevin Copeland in this new take on the story. In his second-ever lead TV role at the time, following NBC's Allegiance two years earlier, Spector – a fan of King's work — was sold from the moment he read the pilot episode's script. 

"I thought the idea of putting a nice, modern, liberal guy at the center of this small-town horror show was a unique choice," the actor told Yahoo! Entertainment. "Usually the central characters in these types of stories are stoic. They are cops or men of violence already. This is a guy who is just a normal progressive suburban dad. What happens to his values when he walks out into the apocalypse."

Spike's "The Mist" remains the only TV version of King's novella, but a new interpretation of the sci-fi horror tale is currently in the works. Mike Flanagan is slated to write and direct an upcoming film adaptation of "The Mist". This will be Flanagan's next Stephen King project after the success of "Carrie," which Prime Video has renewed for Season 2.