Stephen King Adaptation Doctor Sleep Returns to Paramount Plus

Stephen King has never been shy about how much he hated director Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of his 1977 novel, The Shining. Although it remains one of the best horror films of all time, Kubrick’s vision of Jack Torrance and the Overlook Hotel rubbed King the wrong way.

As revealed in the book Fright Favorites: 31 Movies to Haunt Your Halloween and Beyond, King disagreed with Kubrick’s decision to cast Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance. King preferred actors like Martin Sheen, who seemed more approachable than Nicholson, whose filmography tended toward intense and unstable roles. King also criticized the changes to Wendy Torrance, played by Shelley Duvall. He called Kubrick’s adaptation of Wendy “one of the most misogynistic characters ever put on film.”

However, King’s feelings about Kubrick’s adaptation have shifted, and Mike Flanagan is the reason why. Flanagan is best known for his Netflix horror originals, such as Midnight Mass. His adaptation of The Shining’s sequel, Doctor Sleep, is available on Paramount Plus and ultimately changed King’s view of Kubrick’s film for the better.

Mike Flanagan brought Kubrick and King’s vision together

With a story as beloved as The Shining, a sequel faced formidable obstacles regarding whether it would appeal to fans of the original or stand on its own. King reassured those fears with his 2013 novel, Doctor Sleep. The novel received strong praise, with Publishers Weekly calling it a gripping and taut read that provides a satisfying conclusion to Danny Torrance’s story.

Both the novel and the 2019 adaptation of Doctor Sleep follow an adult Danny Torrance, whose time at the Overlook Hotel still haunts him. Working as an orderly in a hospice, Danny uses his psychic abilities to comfort dying patients. During one shift, he mentally bonds with a young girl named Abra. A vampire cult called The True Knot is hunting Abra to feed on her Shine, the psychic abilities she and other children possess.

Flanagan told King from the start that he would draw direct inspiration from Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining for Doctor Sleep. Combining Kubrick’s visual work with King’s original vision was a challenge, but Flanagan was willing to fight to get it right.

“I said, ‘Look, I’m a King fanatic, I have been since I’m a kid, you are my hero, but when I read Doctor Sleep, all the images in my head were Kubrick’s images,'” Flanagan shared with Entertainment Weekly. “There’s no other language to tell that story in. If you say ‘Overlook Hotel,’ I see something. It lives right up in my brain because of Stanley Kubrick. You can’t pretend that isn’t the case.”

King was initially reluctant. He once described Kubrick’s film as a Cadillac with no engine in it. Flanagan, however, believed he could combine the best parts of both the film and the novel. He pitched King a scene near the end of the film with Danny inside the Overlook Hotel. This departed from the book, where the hotel lies in ruins, making King’s approval of the change notable.

With Kubrick’s adaptation inspiring the movie, changes were made to align with the film, though Flanagan strove to stay as faithful as possible.

The result was an ambitious sequel that underperformed at the box office while receiving high praise from critics. Doctor Sleep‘s real victory was that it finally let King appreciate the earlier film.

“Mike took my material, he created a terrific story, people who have seen this movie flip for it, and I flipped for it, too,” King told Entertainment Weekly. “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.”

It took 39 years, but seeing The Shining redeemed in the eyes of its original creator makes for a memorable story.

Doctor Sleep is available to stream now on Paramount Plus.

Source: Polygon