While critics and audiences alike have raved about Stanley Kubrick’s classic horror flick The Shining since its release in 1980, it’s no secret that author Stephen King has never cared for adaptation. Citing Kubrick’s lack of emotional investment in the story’s characters, King declared he “hated” the result in a 2006 interview with The Paris Review.
Doctor Sleep, which will come out this week, will be an adaptation of The Shining‘s 2013 sequel and continue Kubrick’s narrative almost 40 year later. However, this adaptation has finally earned King’s stamp of approval. Directed by Mike Flanagan, known for Netflix’s Gerald’s Game (also a King adaptation) and The Haunting of Hill House, the film follows an adult Danny Torrance still haunted by his childhood trauma experienced in The Shining.
King has offered his praise for the new film, citing that both Flanagan’s screenplay and previous work won him over. Despite the sequel novel involving no trace of the destroyed Overlook Hotel, Doctor Sleep finds Torrance facing his demons inside of it. Flanagan, himself a fan of Kubrick’s film, decided to continue the narrative left off by The Shining rather than sticking to King’s version.
Thankfully, King has offered his praises to the new adaptation, revealing to Entertainment Weekly that he “liked it a lot.” Doctor Sleep arrives in theaters Friday, Nov. 8.
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