THE INSTITUTE – Season 1 | ©2025 MGM+

Based on Stephen King’s 2019 novel of the same name, the series THE INSTITUTE premieres on MGM+ on Sunday, July 13. The eight-episode first season follows teenager Luke Ellis (Joe Freeman), who has a genius IQ and latent telekinetic powers. Luke is kidnapped and taken to the Institute, headed by the formidable Mrs. Sigsby (Mary-Louise Parker). Here, Luke he finds himself among other psychically gifted young people, who are subjected to a series of odd, often painful experiments.

At the same time, former big-city cop Tim Jamieson (Ben Barnes) joins the sheriff’s department in a nearby small town, hoping for a more peaceful life. Those hopes don’t last long once the mysterious off-limits facility up the road raises his suspicions.

Along with King, Jack Bender is an executive producer on THE INSTITUTE, as well as a director on multiple episodes, including the pilot. Bender previously executive-produced and directed all three seasons of MR MERCEDES, based on King’s trilogy. Bender’s prolific career includes directing and/or producing on ALIAS, THE SOPRANOS, LOST, GAME OF THRONES, FROM and the King series adaptations of UNDER THE DOME and THE OUTSIDER.

THE INSTITUTE – Season 1 Key Art | ©2025 MGM+

Another executive producer on THE INSTITUTE is Benjamin Cavell, who teamed with Bender on shaping the series and wrote several episodes. Cavell created the long-running CBS series SEAL TEAM, was the showrunner on the 2020-2021 miniseries version of King’s THE STAND and has been a writer and/or producer on series including GODFATHER OF HARLEM, SNEAKY PETE, HOMELAND, and JUSTIFIED.

Bender and Cavell sit down together for a Zoom interview about THE INSTITUTE, how it started, and where future seasons might go.

Bender says that MR MERCEDES was a major factor in his involvement with THE INSTITUTE. “Stephen loved what we did together on MR. MERCEDES, even though he wasn’t an executive producer, but loves what we’ve done with this show so much, he said ‘Yes’ when we asked to become one.”

Prior to this, Bender continues, prior to the book’s publication in 2019, King “sent me the galleys of THE INSTITUTE after MR. MERCEDES [Season] 2. He said, ‘Do you like working with kids?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I love working with kids. I’ve done it a lot. But kids are really hard, because you have to find the right kids, and that’s not always easy.’ I loved the book.”

A year earlier, in February 2018, Bender relates, “The Parkland school massacre had just happened, like others had in our country and I was struck by that tragedy deeply. And I remember watching those kids who survived it, and lost their friends, and their lives would forever be different from that tragedy, stand up against adults and politicians, and say, ‘You all screwed up, get out of our way, we know how to fix this.’

“And to me, THE INSTITUTE, at its heart, is very much about that. When Ben [Cavell] decided to partner with me on this, we talked about the phrase, ‘The meek shall inherit the Earth.’ And in this case, ‘Children shall inherit the Earth – but first, they have to save themselves.’ So that, to me, was the beginning of THE INSTITUTE, and having Ben join me.

Bender nods to Cavell to respond in turn. “I agree,” Cavell says. “My version of that is that I’m so struck by how politicians of every stripe, on every side, on every issue, claim to be doing whatever they’re doing ‘for the kids,’ and ‘it’s all about the kids,’ but almost none of them ever consult the kids about what they want or what they need. I loved from the beginning that this book and our series is about the kids figuring out how to save themselves. That feels like a real win, and really appropriate for the times that we’ve living in.”

The first season encompasses the entirety of THE INSTITUTE novel, but that doesn’t mean it’s limited.

“It’s meant to be a [continuing] series,” Cavell explains. “Season 1 is the book, but from the beginning, Stephen and I had always talked about the idea that there’s more to it. I mean, I think that the book obviously suggests that there’s a much bigger world and conspiracy and stories to tell, so we hope we get a chance to do that. Stephen and I, and certainly Jack and I have talked a bunch about how it would go on, and we want it to. It’s just a question, I guess, of whether there’s a demand for it, but we would love it.”

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Article: Exclusive Interview with THE INSTITUTE executive producers Jack Bender and Benjamin Cavell on new MGM+ series based on the novel by Stephen King

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