Director Mike Flanagan did an incredible job adapting Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep into a film and merging it with Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining. It was a great film! Unfortunately, for some reason, the movie didn’t do very well at the box office, which is a shame.
Flanagan recently appeared on an episode of The Kingcast, where he talked about the film and he shared a story of screening an early cut of the film to Stephen King, in King’s home theater in Bangor, Maine. As you might imagine, it would be a nerve-wracking experience sitting next to King while showing him a film adaptation of his story that you made. Flanagan couldn’t help but take note of every gesture, noise, and twitch that King made while watching the movie. He said:
“It’s a long movie, and it ran about three times as long for me I think as anyone else who’s ever watched it. Every single thing he did in the seat next to me I was like ‘He hates it, he hates it, oh god he hates it.’”
The filmmaker noted that there was a moment in the film that caused King to fist pump and that scene involved Jacob Tremblay’s character being announced as number Nineteen on his baseball team. The number 19 is a recurring and important number throughout King’s books.
He had a very different reaction to Tremblay’s on-screen death, though. That triggered a very different response from the author and he suggested that he change it. Flanagan said:
“It was one of the only times he leaned over to me during the movie was when Tremblay got killed. He leaned over and he was like ‘That’s a little brutal isn’t it?’ I was like ‘Shit I gotta go back, I gotta go back and edit this. I gotta pull stuff out.’ And we did, we changed it. We backed off….He said to me after as we talked about that, that was his only note for the movie really was, ‘That one’s gonna hurt…You need that, you’re right, but I would have a hard time showing this to my wife so you should think about pulling it back.’ And he was right.”
The scene in the film that we saw of Tremblay’s character being killed was already super freakin’ brutal! It was hard to watch and the scene brought me to tears. It’s hard to imagine it being any worse, but apparently the original cut of that scene was worse! I’m perfectly fine with how they handled it in the theatrical cut of the film. It was the right call.
Flanagan also talked about the philosophy that King revealed to him regarding adaptations of his books, saying:
“My big fear was if Steve hates something I do with his work, I don’t know what I’m going to do, I’m going to carry that with me forever. But he said ‘Well no, the thing is if the movie’s good people say ‘Of course it’s good, the book was good,’ and if the movie is bad they say ‘The book is better.'”
Flanagan revealed King’s conclusion was, “I win either way.”
If you haven’t seen Doctor Sleep yet, you’ve got to watch it! It’s a fantastic film that tells a great story. If you have seen it, what did you think about the brutal death scene of Tremblay’s character in the movie?