Stephen King’s Sequel to The Shining Heading to the Big Screen

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With gusto do I herald the second installment of Stephen King’s adventures of the Torrance family on the big scream screen, Doctor Sleep.  This journey began with an absolute blockbuster lights out, scare-your-pants-off novel The Shining in 1977, continued with a gorgeously creepy Stanley Kubrick interpretation film of the same name in 1980, and the die-hard fans might remember a made-for-TV three-part miniseries in 1997 that made every attempt to stick to King’s original ideas, something that Kubrick did not have much interest in.  Dr Sleep continues with the life of Jack Torrance’s boy, Danny Torrance, now in middle age.  

Danny clambers his way out of a pit of self-destructive behavior in order to help a small girl with huge ‘shining’ powers.  A band of gypsies has discovered the fountain of youth, and it involves locating and torturing anyone with ‘shining’ powers.  This band is led in the hunt by Rose the Hat, a very dangerous woman with an entire village (The True Knot) of mouths to feed.  The girl protected by Danny Torrance is Abra Stone and she represents a year of food for Rose and her murderous gypsy clan.  They will stop at nothing to catch her.  

Akiva Goldsman has adapted the novel for the screen and is firmly holding the reigns as executive producer.  He is most recently known for writing and producing The Dark Tower.  He brought Mike Flanagan along to direct and re-write the script. Flanagan brought King’s book Gerald’s Game to life for Netflix a scant few months ago, and shattered expectations with a keen, tense film.  Gerald’s Game was definitely not King at his best, but Flanagan wrung a pretty good movie out of it.

Dr Sleep is in the infancy stages now- when casting updates and trailers emerge, rest assured you can find it here on MovieNooz.  This is a very good book, and most elements will translate well to the big screen.  Keep an eye out for this one.