‘The Shining’ Sequel ‘Doctor Sleep’ Moves Forward As Director Hired

Stephen King has famously never been a huge fan of Stanley Kubrick‘s “The Shining,” and has detailed his problems with what many considered the finest horror movie ever made, many times over.

“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. In that sense, when it opened, a lot of the reviews weren’t very favorable and I was one of those reviewers. I kept my mouth shut at the time, but I didn’t care for it much,” King said in 2016.

“I feel the same because the character of Jack Torrance has no arc in that movie. Absolutely no arc at all,” he continued. “When we first see Jack Nicholson, he’s in the office of Mr. Ullman, the manager of the hotel, and you know, then, he’s crazy as a shit house rat. All he does is get crazier. In the book, he’s a guy who’s struggling with his sanity and finally loses it. To me, that’s a tragedy. In the movie, there’s no tragedy because there’s no real change. The other real difference is at the end of my book the hotel blows up, and at the end of Kubrick’s movie the hotel freezes. That’s a difference. But I met Kubrick and there’s no question he’s a terrifically smart guy. He’s made some of the movies that mean a lot to me, ‘Dr. Strangelove,’ for one and ‘Paths of Glory,’ for another. I think he did some terrific things but, boy, he was a really insular man. In the sense that when you met him, and when you talked to him, he was able to interact in a perfectly normal way but you never felt like he was all the way there. He was inside himself.”

Well, the author will get a chance to try and rectify things how Danny Torrance is played out on the big screen because his official sequel book, “Doctor Sleep,” is taking one step closely towards going into production. THR reports that Mike Flanagan, who helmed last year’s acclaimed adaptation of King’s “Gerald’s Game,” has been tapped by Warner Bros. to director the movie.

No word yet on who will write the script, but the batshit story catches up with Danny, now in his middle age, who must help save tween Abra from a muderous tribe of paranormals called The True Knot who are living off the “steam” produced when they torture children who can “shine.” Uh, WTF. Here’s the book synopsis:

On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless – mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky 12-year-old Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the “steam” that children with the “shining” produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant “shining” power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.”

Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival. 

Fun fact, Alfonso Cuaron was apparently offered this gig quite a few years ago, but obviously (and perhaps thankfully) turned it down. Whether King likes it or not, “The Shining” is a massively high bar to reach, and Flanagan and co. will have their work cut out for them with “Doctor Sleep.”