Reply #2: From a friend who is working on it...

[CanuckAmok]

...basically Stephen King saw and loved the original von Trier series (hell, who wouldn't?!). He had wanted to do an American version for some time, because he thought it was a story which would be appealing, but was currently inaccessable to most people because of it's foreign language content and limited distribution.

However, his plans to develop it were sidelined a couple of years ago, when he was in that near-fatal car crash.

While recovering in hospital, he developed some ideas based on his own recovery which he wanted to add to the original "Kingdom" story. So, it's more an 'homage' to von Trier's masterpiece than a copy.

Also, as fans of the original know, the von Trier storyline has no conclusion, due to von Trier's belief that he doesn't want to complete the story now that one of the lead actors has died; King's story apperently has closure. It's also 15 hours start to finish, as opposed to the first two parts of the original trilogy's 17.