Stephen King's Worst Nightmare: The Movie Adaptation of His Own Book
Movie adaptations sometimes may go terribly wrong although the source material is perfect.
Although dozens of Stephen King 's books have been adapted for the big screen with The Shining, The Mist and The Running Man to name a few, there's one novel, the adaptation of which the horror maestro has described as having no flavor.
"Firestarter is one of the worst of the bunch, even though in terms of story, it's very close to the original. But it's flavorless; it's like cafeteria mashed potatoes. There are things that happen in terms of special effects in that movie that make no sense to me whatsoever," King once revealed to American Film magazine.
The film directed by Mark L. Lester was released back in 1984 and starred young Drew Barrymore, Martin Sheen and David Keith.
It follows a kid who's developed strong pyrokinetic abilities as a result of her parents involvement in a secret state-run experiment. Firestarter might be King's worst nightmare but it is not the only movie based on his book the king of horror does not like. As strange as it may seem the author dislikes the classic The Shining filmed by Stanley Kubrick with Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance.
"I think The Shining is a beautiful film and it looks terrific and as I've said before, it's like a big, beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside it," King famously said. He later shot his own miniseries to convey what Kubrick had failed to.
"The [Kubrick's] movie has no heart; there's no center to the picture. I wrote the book as a tragedy, and if it was a tragedy, it was because all the people loved each other. Here, it seems there's no tragedy because there's nothing to be lost," Stephen King explained.
And it does not end there. The 1987 adaptation of King's The Running Man is also among the movies the author dislikes. The fact that the film has diverged from the book and the choice of the leading actor – Arnold Schwarzenegger – could have contributed to it.
But there was one adaptation that King ended up suing for using his name to promote it – The Lawnmower Man. The reason? The original story and the film have almost nothing in common so the author thought he has nothing to do with it.
King's books have been adapted into theatrical feature-length movies more then 50 times with the 1976 Carrie being the first adaptation, which made him a world famous celebrity. With the budget of just $2 million the movie grossed some $33 million.
Speaking about the best adaptations Stephen King said it was the 2007 The Mist which was a shocker even by his standards.