Stephen King always seems to have some project of his being adapted in one way or another, but since IT was a smash hit, his works have been getting adapted left and right, with 1922 and Gerald's Game being the most recent. Now we've got two new pieces of SK related news, and one of them is the sequel to the shining, which sounds exciting, until you remember that you read that already (Dr. Sleep, 2013) and it wasn't all that good.
Warner Brothers Pictures announced today that Dr. Sleep is headed our way January 24, 2020, which is probably a good thing, since they'll need a lot of time to turn that thing into something good.
Directed by Mike Flanagan, who did the surprisingly good Oculus and the unsurprisingly awful, Hush, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Flanagan just finished working on another SK joint, the well-received Gerald’s Game.
Doctor Sleep follows the son of Jack Torrance, Danny Torrance, who is still kinda having a rough life, since he watched his own father smash his own face of in the Overlook Hotel. Now, you may be thinking, this sounds good. You'd be right. Danny is a drug addict and a drunk with rage issues just like his dad, and it's interesting to think about what any kid's life, let alone one with psychic abilities, would be like if they went through something that traumatic. Unfortunately, the rest of the book mainly covers Danny Torrance’s evolving fight with a group of psychic vampires who pretty much "eat" the shining out of people. Yeah. It's not a good premise, but hey, the Shining deviated a ton from the book and pulled it off, here's hoping Flanagan can do the same.
In some other SK news, it looks like IT has found its adult Ben Hanscom ("Haystack" to his friends) in Jay Ryan, who hasn't really done a lot, to be honest. He was in the Hulu drama series, Mary Kills People, the CW’s Beauty and the Beast, and an upcoming Australian series, a drama called "Fighting Season."
Ryan joins a pretty solid cast thus far, with James McAvoy (Wanted, Split) as Bill, Jessica Chastain (Crimson Peak, The Martian) as Beverly, and Bill Hader (Barry, Trainwreck) as Richie, with Bill Skarsgård returning as Pennywise the clown.
The sequel hits theaters on September 6, 2019.
