Stephen King fans!!!

[himynameisbrak]

Every year at springtime, I start getting an itch to read or reread some Stephen King. It's been getting pretty warm and spring-y where I live, so I've been doing just that for the past couple of weeks. And I've been having some ideas about cool ways to adapt King's stories for the screen, especially after seeing the success companies like Marvel have been having with those stories. These are just a few ideas that I've had. Feel free to offer your opinions as well!


A CASTLE ROCK SERIES
My idea here is to do something like what Marvel is doing with their Netflix shows. Do a 13-episode (give or take) series of episodes based on one of the Castle Rock books. Since King reuses characters throughout those books, this would be a great way to use the same actors as well. The major Castle Rock stories are (in order), The Dead Zone, Cujo, The Body, The Dark Half, The Sun Dog, and Needful Things. Each book could be a short series, which would give the story plenty of time to breathe and set up everything it needs to set up. Usually my biggest gripe with a King book on the big screen is that it always feels rushed. This would serve to eliminate that problem.

AN ANTHOLOGY SERIES
This is another idea that Netflix could use. If you recall in King's novella The Breathing Method, the characters gather at a strange club in New York to tell stories. That could be used as the framing device for an anthology series that adapts King's plethora of short stories into an anthology series. A different narrator for each episode could be used to great effect. The title, while admittedly kind of clunky, could be this: 249 East 35th Street, which is the address of the club. I think this would be really cool!


Those are just a couple of my ideas. What do you think, fellow King fans?

 

[DontAskJusTckle]

I've read the books and stories you mention. With the exception of the Sun Dog, all the Castle Rock stories have already been adapted for film. The club of story tellers in The Breathing Method was essentially a rip-off of Peter Straub's "Ghost Story."

For whatever reason, the excellence of Stephen King's books seldom survives the transformation into a motion picture.

Examples.

Salem's Lot - Fantastic book, but the movie starring David Soul was beyond pathetic.

Pet Sematery - Pretty good book. Pretty bad movie.

Thinner - Great book. Awful movie.

I think a big reason these good books made such awful movies is that King often gets into the minds of his characters, and lets you hear their trains of thought. You can't really do that effectively in movies.

There were successes, though.

It - became a 2-part ABC mini-series with an impressive cast, including John Ritter, Annette O'Toole, Richard Thomas, Tim Reid, Harry Anderson, and Tim Curry. Though it deviated somewhat from the lengthy book, I enjoyed it tremendously.

The Stand - became a 4-part ABC mini-series, which I thought really did justice to the book. My biggest criticism was that Randall Flagg seemed more or less human, albeit with some shape-shifting abilities. In the book, he was much more frightening in appearance.

The Langoliers - became a 2-part ABC mini-series that was excellently executed in my opinion.

What I'm wondering is if there'll ever be movies made of the Dark Tower series. Seven books. Quite an undertaking. I vote for Peter Jackson to make the movies.

 

[wolfman28]

I've been given a few Dark Tower books, but need to go buy the 1st one obviously!

Worth a read?

 

[himynameisbrak]

If you have a lot of time on your hands, then yes, the Dark Tower series is definitely worth a read.

To your point, DontAskJusTickle, I wouldn't say The Breathing Method was a rip-off of Ghost Story. Stephen King's club is much different than Peter Straub's club. King heavily implies that there is a more supernatural and sinister aspect to the club itself, and that isn't present in Straub's at all. And there's nothing wrong with adapting a book for film or TV a second time, especially if the first time wasn't all that great (i.e. Needful Things or The Dark Half).