Stephen King Responds to Shining Prequel

Do you support a prequel to The Shining  if Stephen King himself is against it?

When I heard that Warner Brothers was doing a prequel to The Shining I was frankly taken aback. My first though was why? Stephen King has finally weighed in on the whole situation and it sounds like he does not support the project which should have some horror fans asking if they should support a Shining Prequel that the original master of horror does not endorse or condone.

He told Entertainment Weekly quote;

There’s a real question about whether or not they have the rights to ‘Before the Play,’ which was the prologue cut from the book — because the epilogue to the book was called ‘After the Play.’ So they were bookends, and there was really scary stuff in that prologue that wouldn’t make a bad movie. Am I eager to see that happen? No I am not.

And there’s some real question about what rights Warner Bros. does still have. The Shining is such an old book now that the copyright comes back to me. Arguably, the film rights lapse — so we’ll see. We’re looking into that.

Stephen King went on to say he wont stand in the way of the movie because he is a ‘nice guy’. He told them he does not want to see Warner Brothers make the prequel and I for one also question the value of doing a prequel story.

As you will recall Sam told you earlier in the week that Glen Mazzarra who ran The Walking Dead show after Frank Darabonte left has been tapped to work on The Shining movie prequel. He is definitely an outstanding choice but considering Stephen King is not supporting the idea its really just not a good idea.

If you want to do a spin on The Shining the better route in my humble view would be to base it off the followup novel to The Shining which comes out in September titled ‘Dr Sleep’. Stephen King spent a ton of time writing that book and it picks up many years after The Shining.

Doctor Sleep revolves around Dan Torrance from the first book who is now a middle aged man working in a Nursing Home. He drifted around the country for many years after the traumatic experience with his deranged father and now spends his days using his gift of ‘the shining’ to help ease the pain of the elderly as they eventually meet their maker in an old age home.

In Dr Sleep He meets a girl named Abra Stone and discovers that he must save her from The True Knot a group of immortal drifters who cross the country feeding off of children who have the gift of ‘the shining’ which Dan Torrance also has. Dr Sleep the sequel to the Shining is a classic good vs evil scenario and the concept sounds absolutely fantastic which again brings me back to… why not use Stephen Kings second book as the source for a sequel versus doing a prequel?

This of course would require that Stephen King get paid some money since he hasnt sold the rights to the sequel. What are your thoughts do you support a prequel without Stephen Kings support or involvement? Or would you rather see Warner Brothers and Glen Mazzarra make Dr Sleep into a feature film? Sound off.