Stephen king

  • Review: ‘Doctor Sleep’ shines bright in a world of scary ghouls (Includes first-hand account)

    While studios continue to remake decades-old classics, there is growing popularity in producing follow-up narratives that build on rather than retell the original. It certainly helps if the source writer saw fit to revisit the characters in a new novel. With the incentive of adapting another of Stephen King‘s books for the screen and an interesting story to share with a wider audience, The Shining sequel hit theatres. Doctor Sleep is an extension of the first tale as it picks up a few decades in the future, i.e. our present.

  • Review: ‘The Dark Tower’ is on another path (Includes first-hand account)

    For as long as filmmakers have been adapting books for the screen, there have been a number of works deemed not filmable either due to their length, complexity or demands on the imagination. Then a visionary arrives who sees a way, often through modern techniques, to achieve the impossible. There have been many instances in which the ability to do something has not equated to the ability to do it well, but we still award these creators an A+ for effort. Of course sometimes the answer is to simply do it differently. More than a decade after the last book in the series was written, The Dark Tower is making its big screen debut.

  • ‘The Dark Tower’ trailer is a bit of a conundrum for book fans (Includes first-hand account)

    There was a time when turning a lengthy book or series into a film was considered a challenge and a risk that was often only accepted by television studios in favour of a miniseries. The fear of cutting out too much and engaging the wrath of fans was too great. But then in 2001, Peter Jackson demonstrated there was a right — and profitable — way to adapt a book series for multiple theatrical films, beginning with The Lord of the Rings. Since then innumerable stories have been adapted for the screen, the latest being Stephen King‘s The Dark Tower series, which released its first trailer.

  • ‘It’ trailer may be too scary for audiences (Includes first-hand account)

    The remake of Stephen King’s It hit a significant roadblock in 2015 when writer/director Cary Fukunaga left the project due to differences regarding the film’s vision and budget. His departure delivered a major blow to those intrigued by his take on the story about a tightknit group of friends who take on an alien devourer as children — and then adults — in their small New England town. But New Line was determined to move ahead with the production. A couple of months later, they tapped director Andrés Muschietti, who made waves with his horror feature Mama, to take over the two-part film adaptation. This announcement was followed by the casting of Bill Skarsgård in the title role, a.k.a. Pennywise, which was originally played by Tim Curry. Recently, a series of disturbing photos featuring the otherworldly, evil clown were released. And now finally, the first trailer has arrived.