Random Things that Stephen King Has Said About Movie Adaptations Of His Work (15 items)

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  (#1) Doctor Sleep

  • Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran, Bruce Greenwood, Zahn McClarnon, Emily Alyn Lind, Carl Lumbly, Alex Essoe, Jocelin Donahue, Jacob Tremblay

  Director Mike Flanagan adapted Doctor Sleep, Stephen King's sequel to The Shining, in 2019 with full permission from the notoriously opinionated author. Flanagan's story combines the images from Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film with King's original story in a way that both pleased the author and satisfied fans of The Shining. In fact, when Flanagan asked King for permission to direct the film, King was won over by the director's acclaimed track record with successful adaptations, including both The Haunting of Hill House and Gerald's Game, which King and Flanagan worked on together. 

  After he read the script for Doctor Sleep "very carefully," King told Entertainment Weekly, he thought, "Everything that I ever disliked about the Kubrick version of The Shining is redeemed for me here." 

  King and Flanagan watched the film together, and afterward, Flanagan said King told him, "You did a beautiful job," and Doctor Sleep "actually warms my feelings up towards the Kubrick film." King corroborated: 

  [Flanagan] created a terrific story, people who have seen this movie flip for it, and I flipped for it, too. Because he managed to take my novel of Doctor Sleep, the sequel, and somehow weld it seamlessly to the Kubrick version of The Shining, the movie. So, yeah, I liked it a lot.
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  (#2) The Shawshank Redemption

  • Morgan Freeman, Rita Hayworth, Tim Robbins, Clancy Brown, James Whitmore, William Sadler, Jeffrey DeMunn, Bob Gunton, David Proval, Gil Bellows, Jude Ciccolella, Mark Rolston, Paul McCrane, Ned Bellamy, Frank Medrano, Brian Delate, Don McManus, Bill Bolender, Joseph Ragno, Neil Giuntoli, Larry Brandenburg, Ken Magee, James Babson, Neil Summers, Rohn Thomas, Alfonso Freeman, V.J. Foster, Dion Anderson, Brian Libby, Gary Lee Davis, John D. Craig, Richard Doone, Dorothy Silver, Brian Brophy, Joe Pecoraro, Alonzo F. Jones, Alan R. Kessler, Paul Kennedy, James Kisicki, Robert Haley, Fred Culbertson, Mack Miles, Brad Spencer, Michael Lightsey, John R. Woodward, John Horton, Charlie Kearns, Gordon Greene, Ron Newell, Renee Blaine, Eugene C. DePasquale, Claire Slemmer, Scott Mann, Dennis Baker, Morgan Lund, Harold E. Cope Jr., John E. Summers, Donald Zinn, Dana Snyder, Cornell Wallace, Rob Reider, Chuck Brauchler

  The Shawshank Redemption is based on King's short story "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," which is about a man falsely imprisoned for murder. King wasn't initially sold on the film; when Frank Darabont presented him with the script, he thought it was "too talky. It’s great, but it’s too much talking." Eventually he had a change of heart and in 2014 he wrote:

  I never thought he'd get it produced, because it was too textured and novelistic. When I first saw it, I realized he'd made not just one of the best movies ever done from my work, but a potential movie classic. That turned out to be the case, but he continued working almost up to the moment the film was released. Shawshank is its own thing... and I'm delighted to have been a part of it.
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  (#3) The Shining

  • Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers, Barry Dennen, Barry Nelson, Anne Jackson, Danny Lloyd, Joe Turkel, Tony Burton, Philip Stone, Robin Pappas, David Baxt, Louise Burns, Lisa Burns, Lia Beldam

  Most people think The Shining, Stanley Kubrick's murderous ode to the haunted Overlook Hotel, is a horror classic. King, however, describes it as "a big, beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside." He thinks the characters are all wrong, calling Wendy Torrance (Shelley Duvall) "this sort of screaming dishrag." He elaborates:

  The character of Jack Torrance has no arc in that movie. Absolutely no arc at all. When we first see Jack Nicholson, he’s in the office of Mr. Ullman, the manager of the hotel, and you know [immediately] he’s crazy as a sh*t house rat. All he does is get crazier. In the book, he’s a guy who’s struggling with his sanity and finally loses it. To me, that’s a tragedy. In the movie, there’s no tragedy because there’s no real change. The other real difference is at the end of my book the hotel blows up, and at the end of Kubrick’s movie the hotel freezes. That’s a difference.
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  (#4) Stand by Me

  • Kiefer Sutherland, Corey Feldman, John Cusack, Richard Dreyfuss, River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton, Jerry O'Connell, Marshall Bell, Bruce Kirby, Casey Siemaszko, Bradley Gregg, Frances Lee McCain, Gary Riley, Scott Beach, William Bronder, Art Burke, Jason Oliver, Madeleine Swift, Popeye, Geanette Bobst

  When King was asked what his favorite adaptation of his work was in a 2014 Rolling Stone interview, he did not hesitate to say, "Probably Stand by Me." Stand by Me is coming of age film about four boys making the journey to see a dead body. King said:

  It was true to the book. It had the emotional gradient of the story. It was moving. I think I scared the sh*t out of Rob Reiner. He showed it to me in the screening room at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I was out there for something else, and he said, "Can I come over and show you this movie?" And you have to remember that the movie was made on a shoestring. It was supposed to be one of those things that opened in six theaters and then maybe disappeared. And instead it went viral. When the movie was over, I hugged him because I was moved to tears; it was so autobiographical.
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  (#5) Pet Sematary

  • Stephen King, Fred Gwynne, Denise Crosby, Susan Blommaert, Miko Hughes, Dale Midkiff, Blaze Berdahl, Mary Louise Wilson, Brad Greenquist, Chuck Courtney, Michael Lombard, Kavi Raz, Kira Willoughby, Peter Stader, Beau Dakota Berdahl, Mara Clark, Liz Davies, Lisa Stathoplos, Richard Collier, Matthew August Ferrell, Donnie Greene, Mary R. Hughes, Elizabeth Ureneck, Chuck Shaw, Andrew Hubatsek, John David Moore, Dorothy McCabe, Kara Dalke, Eleanor Grace Courtemanche, Lila Duffy

  In Pet Sematary, Fred Gwynne headed a cast of otherwise relatively unknown actors in a story about a father who deals with death by burying his loved ones in a rural pet cemetery known to resurrect its tenants.

  When asked about this 1989 adaptation of his novel, King said:

  Dale Midkiff is stiff in places. I think Denise Crosby comes across cold in places. I don't feel that the couple that's at the center of the story has the kind of warmth that would set them off perfectly against the supernatural element that surrounds them. I like that contrast better.

  I think it does what horror movies are supposed to do. It's an outlaw genre. It's an outlaw picture. A lot of the reviews have suggested very strongly that people are offended by the picture, and that's exactly the effect that the horror movie seeks.
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  (#6) It

  • Tim Curry, Seth Green, John Ritter, Annette O'Toole, Jonathan Brandis, Harry Anderson, Chelan Simmons, Olivia Hussey, Richard Masur, Laura Harris, Emily Perkins, Richard Thomas, Jay Brazeau, Venus Terzo, Dennis Christopher, Tim Reid, Frank C. Turner, Tom Heaton, Michael Cole, Gabe Khouth, Florence Patterson, Sheila Moore, Ryan Michael, Charles Siegel, Ben Heller, Brandon Crane, Steve Makaj, Adam Faraizl, Tony Dakota, Jarred Blancard, Donna Peerless, Drum Garrett, Marlon Taylor, Caitlin Hicks

  King has love for both versions of IT: the 1990 made-for-TV version starring Tim Curry as Pennywise, the malevolent, shapeshifing clown, and the 2017 adaptation starring Bill Skarsgård in the role.

  When asked about the TV classic, King said:

  A whole generation of kids between the ages of eight and 14 were scared sh*tless by Tim Curry, and when the new one came out it was a chance to revisit that particular experience in their childhood. Then there was this weird viral bulge in stories about creepy clowns. That was in the press all over the place. So it was a number of different things. It was the right movie at the right time.

  The remake exceeded King's expectations: 

  I had hopes, but I was not prepared for how good it really was. It's something that's different, and at the same time, it's something that audiences are gonna relate to. They're gonna like the characters. To me, it's all about character. If you like the characters... if you care... the scares generally work. I'm sure my fans will enjoy the movie. I think they're gonna really enjoy the movie. And I think some of them will go back two or three times and actually savor the thing. I went back and saw it a second time, and I felt I was seeing things the second time through that I missed the first time.
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  (#7) The Green Mile

  • Tom Hanks, Gary Sinise, Sam Rockwell, James Cromwell, Michael Clarke Duncan, David Morse, Patricia Clarkson, Bonnie Hunt, Harry Dean Stanton, Graham Greene, Michael Jeter, William Sadler, Paula Malcomson, Barry Pepper, Jeffrey DeMunn, Doug Hutchison, Dabbs Greer, Bill McKinney, Brent Briscoe, Eve Brent, Philip Hawn, Scotty Leavenworth, Van Epperson, Bill Gratton, Rachel Singer, Ted Hollis, Brian Libby, Tommy Barnes, Gary Imhoff, Rai Tasco, Christopher Joel Ives, Garth Shaw, Robert Malone, Dono Langley, Gower Mills, Mack Miles, Edrie Warner, Rebecca Klingler, Dee Croxton, Bailey Drucker, James Marshall Wolchok, Evanne Drucker, Katelyn Leavenworth, Toy Spears, Tim Smith, Todd Thompson, David E. Browning, Bill Craddock, Dora Tate, Samual Tate, Christopher Greenwood

  The Green Mile is another King prison story, but is very different than The Shawshank Redemption. When inmate John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan) is brought into custody for the murder of two young girls, Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks) and his fellow guards notice that he is able to perform healing miracles that lead them to question his guilt.

  King loved director Frank Darabont's adaptation:

  I would have to say that I was delighted with The Green Mile. The film is a little "soft" in some ways. I like to joke with Frank that his movie was really the first R-rated Hallmark Hall of Fame production. For a story that is set on death row, it has a really feel-good, praise-the-human condition sentiment to it. I certainly don’t have a problem with that because I am a sentimentalist at heart.
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  (#8) Carrie

  • John Travolta, Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Nancy Allen, Amy Irving, Sydney Lassick, Edie McClurg, Betty Buckley, William Katt, Priscilla Pointer, P. J. Soles, Stefan Gierasch, Michael Talbott, Cindy Daly, Harry Gold, Terry Bolo, Doug Cox, Nichelle North, Anson Downes, Rory Stevens, Glen Vance, Michael Towers, Cameron De Palma, Deirdre Berthrong, Katie Irving, Dan Protheroe

  Carrie is the story of a telekinetic teen and her overprotective mother. It was King's first big book and he was paid just $2,500 for the rights. He is pleased with what director Brian De Palma did in the 1976 film adaptation, however, saying: 

  De Palma's approach to the material was lighter and more deft than my own - and a good deal more artistic. The book seems clear enough and truthful enough in terms of the characters and their actions, but it lacks the style of De Palma's film. The book attempts to look at the ant farm of high school society dead on; De Palma's examination of this "High School Confidential" world is more oblique and more cutting... Carrie is a good movie. It hasn't aged as well as some of the other ones, but it's still pretty good.

  He was, not, however, interested in the 2013 remake. King wondered, “Why, when the original was so good? I mean, it's not Casablanca or anything, but a really good horror-suspense film, [that's] much better than the book.”
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  (#9) Cujo

  • Dee Wallace, Danny Pintauro, Ed Lauter, Daniel Hugh Kelly, Christopher Stone, Billy Jayne, Mills Watson, Kaiulani Lee

  Cujo, the story of a rabid dog who turns on his human family, is a book Stephen King doesn't even remember writing. He wrote the story at the height of his drug and alcohol addiction. Despite this, he does enjoy the film adaptation. He said:

  Cujo is a terrific picture. You know, that one often gets overlooked. If I have a resentment, it’s that Dee Wallace never got nominated for an Academy Award. She did a terrific job as the woman who gets stuck out there with the rabid dog who’s menacing them.
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  (#10) The Mist

  • Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden, Alexa Davalos, Toby Jones, Andre Braugher, Samuel Witwer, Melissa McBride, William Sadler, Jeffrey DeMunn, Frances Sternhagen, Buck Taylor, Chris Owen, Andrew Stahl, David Jensen, Ritchie Montgomery, Julio Cedillo, Louis Herthum, Juan Gabriel Pareja, Nathan Gamble, Ron Clinton Smith, Jackson Hurst, Ted Ferguson, Amin Joseph, Robert C. Treveiler, Ron Fagan, Kim Wall, Cherami Leigh, Eric Kelly McFarland, Jimmy Lee Jr., Ginnie Randall, Brian Libby, Chuck Vail, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0339472/, Dodie Brown, Tiffany Morgan, Jay Amor, Amy McGee, Walt Hollis, Travis Fontenot, Cindy McBride, Kip Cummings, Kevin Beard, Steven E. Williams, Tammy Eaton, Gregg Brazzel, Kristin Barnhart, Brandon O'Dell, Mike Martindale, Michaela Morgan, John F. Daniel, Brian Scott Hunt, Derek Cox-Berg, Taylor E. Brown, Kelly Lintz, Walter Fauntleroy, Sonny Franks, Susan Malerstein, Darrick Mosley, Pamela Houghton

  The Mist tells the story of a Maine town that is overrun by otherworldly creatures when a mysteriously dense fog rolls in. The film's grim ending is different than King's novella, and King actually prefers Frank Darabont's adaptation. He said:

  When Frank was interested in The Mist, one of the things that he insisted on was that it would have some kind of an ending, which the story doesn't have. It just sort of peters off into nothing, where these people are stuck in the mist, and they're out of gas, and the monsters are around, and you don't know what's going to happen next. When Frank said that he wanted to do the ending that he was going to do, I was totally down with that. I thought that was terrific. And it was so anti-Hollywood - anti-everything, really! It was nihilistic. I liked that. So I said, "You go ahead and do it."
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  (#11) Children of the Corn

  • Linda Hamilton, Peter Horton, R. G. Armstrong, Courtney Gains, John Philbin, Julie Maddalena, John Franklin, Mitch Carter, Robby Kiger, Eric Freeman, Anne Marie McEvoy, Jonas Marlowe, Corey Frizzell, Teresa Toigo, Dan Snook, Patrick Boylan, Dennis Carl, Suzy Southam, D.G. Johnson, Elmer Soderstrom, David Cowen

  Children of the Corn follows a couple who heads into a small town in Nebraska, where they find the children have taken out all the adults. The movie led to nine sequels that do not have King's stamp of approval.

  Despite the success of the original film, King notes, "I could do without all of the Children of the Corn sequels. I actually like the original pretty well. I thought they did a pretty good job on that.”
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  (#12) Misery

  • Lauren Bacall, Kathy Bates, James Caan, Rob Reiner, Richard Farnsworth, Frances Sternhagen, Graham Jarvis

  King told Rolling Stone he thinks Misery is "a great film." However, he was initially hesitant to allow it to be adapted at all. Rob Reiner, who directed both Misery and Stand by Me, suggests it is because the story was "very personal to him." Reiner goes on to explain:

  [King] didn’t want to option it to anybody unless he felt it was in good hands, and because he loved Stand by Me - and he had told me it was the best adaptation of anything that he had ever written - he said, "I’ll give it to you guys if Rob will either produce or direct it." So, he felt comfortable that I would do it.
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  (#13) Firestarter

  • Drew Barrymore, Heather Locklear, Martin Sheen, George C. Scott, Louise Fletcher, Robert Miano, Art Carney, David Keith, Moses Gunn, Freddie Jones, Leon Rippy, Dick Warlock, Antonio Fargas, Drew Snyder, George P. Wilbur, Curtis Credel, Jeff Ramsey, John Sanderford, Nina Jones, Steve Boles, Laurens Moore, Stanley Mann, Carey Fox, Etan Boritzer, Orwin C. Harvey, Jack Magner, Wendy Womble, William Alspaugh, Scott R. Davis, Joan Foley, Larry Sprinkle, Keith Colbert, Cassandra Ward-Freeman, Lisa Anne Barnes, Anne Fitzgibbon, Carole Francisco

  Firestater is the story of a pyrokinetic girl (Drew Barrymore) who doesn't know the extent of her own power. A couple of years after the film was released, King commented that it was "one of the worst [adaptations] of the bunch, even though in terms of story it's very close to the original. But it's flavorless; it's like cafeteria mashed potatoes.” 
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  (#14) Maximum Overdrive

  • Carrie Fisher, Stephen King, Emilio Estevez, Giancarlo Esposito, Nancy Allen, Frankie Faison, Pat Hingle, Yeardley Smith, Hal Fishman, Leon Rippy, William Hope, J. C. Quinn, Christopher Murney, Christopher Britton, Lou Perryman, Anthony Denison, Holter Graham, Laura Harrington, Oliver Robins, Ellen McElduff, John Short

  A loose adaptation of the short story "Trucks," Maximum Overdrive is the only film King directed himself. The movie is about a group of people who are hunted by a pack of trucks that come to life and try to kill them. King is more critical of this movie, calling it:

  A moron movie, like Splash! You check your brains at the box office and you come out 96 minutes later and pick them up again. People say, "How’d you like the movie," and you can’t say much. It’s not like The Big Chill or 2001... I was coked out of my mind all through its production, and I didn’t know what I was doing.

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