While Stephen King is one of the most celebrated (and prolific) authors in history, it’s no secret that he has a profound dislike for quite possibly the most famous adaptation of his work: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. The author criticized Kubrick’s adaptation at the time of its release—how the filmmaker downplayed the supernatural elements of the book and how he cast Shelley Duvall who was “basically just there to scream and be stupid, and that’s not he woman I wrote about.” King also reportedly had issues with the depiction of Jack Torrance. In the book, Jack is corrupted by supernatural forces, but in Kubrick’s film Jack Nicholson’s version of Jack Torrance is clearly exorcising some other kinds of internal demons (in addition to the ghosts, mind you).
So it’s with great anticipation that we look forward to the release of Doctor Sleep, an adaptation of King’s sequel novel that follows Danny Torrance as an adult suffering from alcoholism and visions from his traumatic past. Warner Bros. enlisted The Haunting of Hill House and Oculus filmmaker Mike Flanagan to write and direct the Doctor Sleep movie with Ewan McGregor in the lead role, and in a new behind-the-scenes featurette, King appears alongside Flanagan to praise his adaptation:
“By taking Dan Torrance’s story as a grown up and filtering it through his won large heart, Mike has been able to take the Kubrick movie a step further.”
Indeed, Flanagan reveals that his approach wasn’t to just straight up adapt King’s sequel book, but to also bridge the gap between Kubrick’s interpretation of The Shining and King’s original source material:
“My strategy was to honor what Kubrick did and to approach this like it is authentic sequel to the film that he made, while also trying to honor themes from The Shining that didn’t make it into the film.”
The result, hopefully, is something that King is a bit more fond of, and that maybe even retroactively makes Kubrick’s film a bit more “faithful” of an adaptation. Although I’m not really sure Kubrick’s film needs any fussing with—it’s a straight-up horror masterpiece despite what King thinks of it, and I’m of the opinion that Kubrick’s interpretation of Jack Torrance is far more terrifying than the one depicted in King’s novel—and later in the forgettable miniseries adaptation.
We’ll get to experience Doctor Sleep soon enough as the film hits theaters on November 8th, but early screenings are taking place on October 30th in theaters across the country, if you want to get in the spooky mood before Halloween.