As the filmmaker continues to bring the author’s works to life, Mike Flanagan looks back on Stephen King’s glowing review of his Doctor Sleep movie. The 2019 movie served as an adaptation of both of King’s Shining novels and a sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 movie, exploring an adult Danny Torrance as he must step up to protect a young girl with Shining abilities from a vampire-like group known as The True Knot. Led by Ewan McGregor and Rebecca Ferguson, Doctor Sleep was a hit with critics, but underperformed at the box office, grossing just over $72 million against its reported $55 million production budget.
During a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter for the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of The Life of Chuck, Flanagan reflected on his experience making Doctor Sleep. The writer/director, in particular, recalled Stephen King’s reaction to the movie, with Flanagan spending the entire screening with the author being worried he wouldn’t care for it, only for King to tell him at the end “You did a great job“. See Flanagan’s full comments below:
We brought Doctor Sleep to screen in Maine, and I sat next to him in his hometown theater in Bangor. I didn’t look at the screen at all. I just kept trying to subtly gauge any reaction. If he nodded, I thought, “Great, it’s working!” If he sighed or shifted, it was like, “Oh, he hates it!” And that was a long movie. Two and a half hours later, he leaned over and said, “You did a great job.” I just about died. Then he drove me to his house. We ate pizza and chatted in his library. He’s the nicest.
Flanagan Impressed King In More Ways Than One With Doctor Sleep
The Sequel Redeemed Kubrick’s Movie For King
King is pretty notable for being vocal in his displeasure with a variety of past adaptations of his works, though Kubrick’s The Shining remains the one he’s talked the most about in regard to his frustrations. In the wake of the original release, the majority of King’s frustrations stemmed from the changes Kubrick made to his source material, though has expressed feeling more mixed about the movie in the years since, generally appreciating its unsettling atmosphere while still taking issue with the changes.
Interestingly, though he had the base idea for the sequel after writing the original novel, part of why King wrote the Doctor Sleep novel was to fix some of the issues he had with Kubrick’s Shining. When it came time for Flanagan to adapt the 2013 book for the screen, he initially was reluctant about some of the filmmakers’ initial ideas, namely a return to the Overlook Hotel, which was destroyed at the end of his Shining book. As he continued collaborating with Flanagan, though, King not only approved, but even went so far as to praise Doctor Sleep for redeeming everything he disliked about Kubrick’s movie.
How Doctor Sleep’s Appreciation Has Grown Since Its Release
A String Of Lackluster Adaptations & Flanagan’s Success Have Seen The Movie Reappraised
Though the movie may have underperformed at the time of its release, appreciation for Doctor Sleep has steadily grown over the past five years. Between the release of the movie’s director’s cut and arrival on streaming, the Shining sequel has found a bigger audience after failing to match the same financial heights of It Chapter Two and 2019’s Pet Sematary remake. Beyond just the avenues of ways for audiences to watch it, there are a variety of other reasons why the movie has grown in popularity.
One of the biggest factors for Doctor Sleep‘s late-life success can be attributed to Flanagan’s own rise in success in the years since the movie came out. Just prior to the King adaptation, Flanagan found widespread acclaim for The Haunting of Hill House and a year after Doctor Sleep with its anthology second season, The Haunting of Bly Manor. This success has grown exponentially over the past few years, including Netflix’s Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club and The Fall of the House of Usher, while also being recently signed to write and direct a new Exorcist movie for Blumhouse.
In addition to The Life of Chuck, Flanagan is also developing a series adaptation of King’s The Dark Tower franchise.
The other major reason why Doctor Sleep has built a passionate fanbase is the string of lackluster adaptations of King’s works in the past five years. Both the Children of the Corn and Firestarter remakes were ravaged by critics, while The Boogeyman saw mixed reviews and a modest box office reception, and Paramount+’s Pet Sematary: Bloodlines also earned poor reviews. With Flanagan keeping himself busy with other King adaptations, fans of Doctor Sleep can look forward to many more hits in the future.
Source: THR
