I think The Shining is a beautiful film and it looks terrific and as I’ve said before, it’s like a big, beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside it. Here’s King’s quotes on The Shining from a 2016 interview with Deadline: Although, he did say that Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep helped him come to appreciate Stanley Kubrick’s film a tad more. Of all King’s opinions on the adaptations of his work, his negative feelings on The Shining are the most well-known. certainly he is as peculiar as Hitchcock. I think that De Palma is a worthy pretender to Hitchcock’s throne. I wish they could have had that, but otherwise, I don’t have any real quibbles. Also, in the book, Carrie destroyed the entire town on the way home that didn’t happen in the movie, mostly because the budget was too small. He played the part of Billy Nolan the way I wish I’d written it, half-funny and half-crazy. Sissy Spacek was excellent, but right behind her-in a smaller part than it should have been was John Travolta.
The attitude of the film was different from my book I tended to view the events straight-on, humorlessly, in a straight point-to-point progression (you have to remember that the genesis of Carrie was no more than a short story idea), while I think De Palma saw a chance to make a movie that was a satirical view of high school life in general and high school peer-groups in particular. I liked De Palma’s film of Carrie quite a bit.
Here’s his full quote from the former chat: King, like most, is a big fan of Brian De Palma’s movie, saying in a 1978 interview with Cinefantastique that he “ liked De Palma’s film of Carrie quite a bit.” He did say in a 2010 interview with Florida Weekly that he now found the film a bit dated. Then again, new King material may never stop coming out either way, as it seems right up his alley to have dozens of stories in reserve for publication from beyond the grave.Ĭarrie was King’s first novel, and naturally, his first hit movie adaptation.
That is to say, even when King retires from writing - assuming he ever does - the onslaught of King adaptations is unlikely to cease. Carrie is the most notable example, having become a movie in 1976, a TV movie in 2002, and a theatrical remake in 2013. While a sizable chunk of his catalog still has yet to be adapted, it feels like just about everything will hit the screen eventually.Įven if they don’t, the more recent trend is for King’s books to get adapted more than once, in some cases for the third time. When someone writes as much as King, and has as high a success rate as he does, it’s no wonder that Hollywood is always happy to battle over the rights to his latest novel or short story. Stephen King is one of the most adapted authors ever, and here’s a collection of the opinions he’s offered about those various movies and TV shows.