A definitive compendium of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is on the way. The 2,000-page collection, which will be sold for $1500, was authored by J.W. Rinzler and edited by Oscar winner Lee Unkrich, director of Coco and Toy Story 3. Te definitive compendium claims to be an unprecedented look at the 1980 horror classic.With just 1000 copies produced, the collection will be available on March 7.

The 2,000-page book about the making of the horror classic features a detailed exploration of The Shining's production, including rewrites from Kubrick, first-hand accounts of the fire at Elstree Studios, a breakdown of how the elevator of blood scene was put together, new interviews with cast and crew, rare production ephemera, and never-before-seen production photographs that were gotten directly from the director’s archive.

In an interview with Taschen, Unkrich revealed that the creation of the definitive compendium was inspired by the 2005 book, The Stanley Kubrick Archives. The author and avid fan of The Shining disclosed that the project took him 12 years to complete. He revealed the time he spent gave him the opportunity to track down every living cast and crew that worked on The Shining. Explaining the origins of the book, Unkrich stated, “In 2010, I had an opportunity to visit the Stanley Kubrick archive, it was extremely exciting for me. I saw a lot of things I’d never seen before, I learned things that I didn’t know. It was during that visit to the archives that I first had the thought that maybe there should be a book about the making of The Shining.”

Unkrich explained his reasons for creating his website, The Overlook Hotel, and how it inspired the books early days:

So I created a website called theoverlookhotel.com, and shared basically everything that I had gathered with the world. But I actually had an ulterior motive at the time, which is that I hoped that people would approach me, who maybe had things I had never seen before. [T]hat actually happened, and I found a lot of the things I got my hands on, just because people liked the site and had their own memorabilia that they wanted to share. So the overlookhotel.com ended up being a relly important part of the beginnings of my research and gathering a lot of the materials that ended up in this book.

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Image via Warner Bros.

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'The Shining' Is Based on a Stephen King Novel of the Same Name

Kubrick’s The Shining is based on bestselling novel of the same name by celebrated author Stephen King. Although the horror movie was based on King’s book, which was published in 1977, there are notable differences between King’s version and Kubrick’s version. The sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep, was released in 2019 and was written and directed by Mike Flanagan (Oculus, Hush, The Haunting of Hill House and Gerald’s Game). Like Kubrick, Flanagan also made some changes in his film which based on King’s 2013 book of the same name, and a sequel to The Shining.

The 2,000-page definitive compendium will be available on March 7 and can be purchased from Taschen. Watch the video showing details from the definitive compendium with Unkrich’s interview below: