Everyone knows that Stephen King hated Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of his novel The Shining. So there were always going to be serious challenges in brining King’s belated sequel, Doctor Sleep, to the big screen. Do you ignore Kubrick and tell the story of grown up Danny Torrence as if that masterpiece didn’t exist? Do you risk the ire of King and follow straight on from Kubrick? It turns out director Mike Flanagan’s approach was to do neither and both.
Talking to a room full of journalists at a preview of the trailer that has now arrived, Flanagan explained: “When you’re talking about getting into the universe of The Shining, it’s not just about that novel, it’s also about Kubrick’s film and it’s also about the novel of The Shining itself so we had three different sources to look at in putting the script together.
“There’s something about that sentence – it’s a sequel to The Shining – that’s enormously intimidating for one, but also doesn’t really represent what we’re doing. We were really careful from the beginning not to represent it as a straight sequel to either, to the Kubrick moive – although it absolutely honours and celebrates his vision of that world – but also to the King side of things. We always approached it as, this is an adaptation of the novel Doctor Sleep that takes place within the cinematic universe that Kubrick established.”
Check out the trailer and you’ll see what he means.
Peppered with flashbacks and callbacks to Kubrick’s movie, but with it’s own different and distinctive look, Doctor Sleep follows grown-up Dan (Ewan McGregor), now struggling with alcoholism, who comes across a sinister group led by the charming and terrifying Rose The Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) who are ‘feeding’ on the energy of children who have the same powers as Dan. Dan forms a connection with a young girl called Abra and the film follows them on a dark journey together.
It’ll deal with the aftermath of what Dan’s childhood was like at The Overlook, though Flanagan explains it’s a different beast.
“It’s very much its own story. Dan as the protagonist having so many years between the events of this story and the events of The Shining. So he’s a product of The Shining but this is very much his own adventure that he’s on with Abra. As much as he is a direct product of and unable to escape the ghosts of what happened to him as a child, I viewed the movie very much the same way. It’s very much its own story which can be enjoyed thoroughly without having seen The Shining and without having read any of the source material, but much like Dan it’s an inevitable product of those things and the influence they have on him as a character, is very similar to the way those things influence our film.”
Also talking at the Q&A, Flanagan’s long-time collaborator and producer Trevor Macy explained how important it was to get both King and the Kubrick estate on board.
“We have a previous relationship with Stephen King that we value very highly and understanding what his history was with the cinematic universe of The Shining we reached out to him early and asked what he thought and pitched ideas. Similarly, on the Kubrick side of things, we’re lucky to be at Warner Bros who has a wonderful long term relationship with the Kubrick estate and it was essential in facilitating that relationship and reaching out early as well. In fact, both camps engaged early and were very generous with their input and materials.”
Watching the trailer and you can already get a sense of why it was so key to get buy-in from both. Moments like the corridor tricycle ride, room 237, the old lady in the bath and the elevator scene all make an appearance. Flanagan explains how this worked:
“All of them except for one are images that we created from scratch – sets that we built, actors that we put in. The only shot in the trailer that is repurposed from the Kubrick film is that brief glimpse you get of the elevators with the blood. Everything else is us. So we took an insane amount of care and true delight in being able to recreate so many very interesting environments, characters, moments, and some new ones that take place in that world as well.”
So why not the elevator scene?
“We could have spent months trying to perfectly recreate the fluid dynamics of that blood coming out of the elevator doors, it’s impossible to do. The way that it happened when he did it, the elevator sticks as it begins to open, the way that the blood pours out, the way it kind of wraps and coils around the edge of the elevator frame and bounces back up the floor and the walls, we can’t recreate that.
“So we had to dig back into the original footage for the fluid dynamics. What you’re not seeing though, is that shot as you see it in the trailer will not be in the film because that is still being perfected. We will not have any footage from the Kubrick film that isn’t substantially different by the time you see this.”
Flanagan admits he’s a massive Stephen King geek, so we can expect a range of Easter eggs in the finished film.
“I’m a constant reader. I’ve been a king fanatic since I was a child so I really can’t help getting stuck in there. There’s a moment in this movie that fans of The Dark Tower are going to lose their minds over. Little things – if you look at posters in the background at the movie theatre, or really scrutinise buses you’d going to see something that’ll excite the right fan. The short answer is: oh my god yes there are lots of Easter eggs. I hope somebody is able to find them all.”
Finally, he went on to talk about King’s famous dislike of Kubrick’s movie and the challenges he faced bringing the two together.
“Stephen King famously hated the Kubrick film. He actively dislikes it to this day. What he had said about it at the time was that he admired and respected the filmmaking technique that was on display but he really resented the changes that were made to the characters, particularly to Jack and Wendy and to the ending. And he described it at the time as being a big beautiful Cadillac without an engine.
“Now on the other side of that coin you’ve got the fact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is a masterpiece of cinema that is unequaled and unrivaled within the genre, that film geeks like me grew up studying frame by frame to learn what was possible with film making. Reconciling those two things is a scary proposition and with Stephen in particular, who has been adapted very very well sometimes and very very poorly other times and is not shy about his opinion of how you treat his material.
“We pitched him a few things, we said we want to honour and acknowledge The Overlook, and specifically Kubrick’s, and here’s why, here’s how and here are a couple of surprises. And when we finished explaining to him how we were going to approach it, to our great relief he was very excited about it.
“I think it’s the most nervous I’ve ever been in my career – two times in my career and they were both on this picture. The first was when we sent the script to Stephen for the first time and that was sleepless nights but he loved the script and we felt better. The second was when the film went out to Stephen and the Kubrick estate and I still have ulcers from that particular moment. But they both loved it.
“Part of bringing those two visions back in line to continue the story of the Torrence family that was really what this was about for me as an apostle of these giant wonderful storytellers.”
Doctor Sleep opens in UK cinemas on 31 October
