While many Stephen King followers are massive fans of the 1980 adaptation of The Shining, it actually isn’t that popular with the author himself. Stephen King has stated multiple times that he does not like Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. As such, many of his fans were curious to see his response to Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep adaptation. After all, his movie is aiming to be both an adaptation of King’s novel and loose sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s film. And it turns out the Doctor Sleep movie made Stephen King appreciate The Shining just a little more.
According to Stephen King, he believes that the Doctor Sleep adaptation partially “redeems” The Shining. Here’s what he stated specifically:
“I read the script to this one very, very carefully. Because obviously I wanted to do a good job with the sequel, because people knew the book The Shining, and I thought, I don’t want to screw this up. Mike Flanagan, I’ve enjoyed all his movies, and I’ve worked with him before on Gerald’s Game. So, I read the script very, very carefully and I said to myself, ‘Everything that I ever disliked about the Kubrick version of The Shining is redeemed for me here.”
He goes on to say:
“I don’t want to get into a big argument about how great the Shining film is that Kubrick did or my feelings about it. All I can say is, Mike took my material, he 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.”
It’s certainly a massive compliment for Stephen King to not just praise the movie, but reveal that it makes him respect Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining he previously hated. Hopefully fans will enjoy Doctor Sleep just as much when it hits theaters on Friday.
Source: EW