Stephen King Reveals DOCTOR SLEEP Fixes What He Hated About Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING

While most horror fans love Stanely Kubrick’s film adaptation of The Shining, author Stephen King hated it. His hate for that movie is legendary. Well, it turns out that director Mike Flanagan’s sequel, Doctor Sleep, fixes what King hated about the film.

When making Doctor Sleep, Flanagan not only had to adapt the book, but he also had to find a way to tie it into Kubrick’s film, which isn’t an easy task. He wanted to honor both King and Kubrick’s vision and I think he managed to pull it off extremely well!

While talking to Entertainment Weekly, King revealed:

“I read the script to this one very, very carefully. Because obviously I wanted to do a good job with the sequel, because people knew the book The Shining, and I thought, I don’t want to screw this up. Mike Flanagan, I’ve enjoyed all his movies, and I’ve worked with him before on Gerald’s Game. So, I read the script very, very carefully and I said to myself, ‘Everything that I ever disliked about the Kubrick version of The Shining is redeemed for me here.'”

King didn’t dive into all the things that he disliked about The Shining or share the exact details on how The Shining was redeemed through it, but he did add:

“I don’t want to get into a big argument about how great the Shining film is that Kubrick did or my feelings about it. All I can say is, Mike took my material, he created a terrific story, people who have seen this movie flip for it, and I flipped for it, too. Because he managed to take my novel of Doctor Sleep, the sequel, and somehow weld it seamlessly to the Kubrick version of The Shining, the movie. So, yeah, I liked it a lot.”

After seeing Doctor Sleep, I know what King is talking about. I don’t want to spoil how things play out in the movie though. However, I will say if you’ve actually read The Shining, when you watch Doctor Sleep, you’ll be able to point out what the sequel fixed for King.

I loved Doctor Sleep, I just wish the story would have been split into two films so that they could dive into the details more. You can read my review for it here.