Stephen King Still Bitter About the Academy Overlooking His Scariest Adaptation Ever

Summary:

• Stephen King is one of the most proclaimed authors with myriads of novels adapted for the cinema and TV, yet only one of such films won an Oscar back in the 1990s.
• King once stated that his other movie adaptation from 2007 also deserved to be nominated by the Academy, but the film was completely ignored back then.
• Based on King’s 1999 short story, the movie of the same name follows a successful writer whose disbelief in supernatural phenomena is challenged when he checks into a haunted hotel room in New York City.

Throughout the years of his work, Stephen King has surely got enough acclaim from his readers and the world’s critics, but not that much of recognition from the cinema’s biggest awards institution.

There’s a whole collection of movies and shows that were successfully adapted from Stephen King’s most famous novels, but only one of the films, Misery, starring Kathy Bates, made it to winning an Oscar for Best Actress back in 1991.

Though the Academy is somewhat discreet when it comes to celebrating horror flicks, King still resents Hollywood’s essential award for not giving a chance to his novel’s adaptation that he himself considers one of the best.

Back in 2007, King’s 1999 short story titled 1408 was transformed into a psychological thriller of the same name. Starring John Cusack, the movie follows Mike Enslin who got everyone’s acclaim for his firm disbelief in the supernatural, the books about which he brutally criticizes.

While writing a book about allegedly haunted hotels, Mike finds out that The Hotel Dolphin, a fictional hotel in New York City, has room 1408, infamous due to eerie and paranormal events that happened there.

Convinced that everything said about the haunted room is yet another lie, Mike checks into the hotel where he experiences a real terror during a night in room 1408.

Back in the day, 1408 was quite a big hit both commercially and critically. The film became a box office success, earning more than $130 million against the initial budget of $25 million and, on top of that, got numerous accolades from critics and viewers, eventually landing impressive scores of 80% and 61% respectively on Rotten Tomatoes.

Though the movie still didn’t make it to that year’s awards season, Stephen King is reassured it should have.

According to the author, “Room 1408 in the fictional Dolphin Hotel is scarier than all the rooms of Stanley Kubrick's Overlook put together,” and John Cusack’s powerful performance was obnoxiously ignored by the Academy.

King later continued slamming the institution, noting that it “once more proved that great work is almost never rewarded if it's done in a horror movie” and then adding that Kathy Bates’ recognition in Misery was just an exception.

Source: Stephen King’s Danse Macabre