I went to a really good talk at the BFI last week about stephen king and movie adaptations, interested to hear what others feel are the best adaptations. Personally i really did love the shining though sk hated it! I also really loved the crappy children of the corn film...
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CornflakeHomunculus ·
03/09/2017 22:46
I think all the best ones which really capture the feel of SK well are those by Frank Darabont. The Mist, The Green Mile and Shawshank are all excellent.
I really don't like Kubrick's version of The Shining. It's reasonably entertaining if you pretend it's not a SK adaptation but it compeltely missed the point of the book and reduced everyone to the most one dimensional version of the characters possible, especially Wendy.
I do like 1408, it's a lot of fun and it pleases me no end that the hour long countdown passes almost in real time 
I've also got a real soft spot for some of the rather cheesy made for TV films. There's a version of The Shining which for me is a much better adaptation than Kubrick's even though it suffers from dodgy effects and daytime TV acting in places (apart from Steven Weber who is brilliant as Jack Torrance). I also enjoy IT (mostly for Tim Curry!!) and The Langoliers.
It's not an adaptation of his own work but I did really enjoy the TV series Kingdom Hospital which SK was heavily involved in. I also enjoyed Rose Red which he wrote specifically for TV.
11.22.63 was excellent and I've just started watching the new TV series of The Mist which is pretty interesting so far. DH very much enjoyed Under the Dome, at least the first seasons or so, and I really liked the book so that's on my list of stuff to watch.
I've just seen there's a TV adaptation in the works of Wizard and Glass which (despite the fact it's my least favourite DT book) I'm actually far more interested in than the DT film.
CornflakeHomunculus ·
03/09/2017 23:21
I'm not expecting to be blown away by the new IT but I am hoping it's going to be fun. SK himself seems very happy with it, which is a good sign although to be fair there aren't many adaptations of his work that he's really negative about.
It does seem like Andrés Muschietti gets the book and I did like Mama very much so again, that's positive. Some of the child actors are also very good.
I'm not bothered by the change of when the film is set, I think it's a reasonable decision both stylistically and it terms of ease of filming. I'm not 100% sold on the design of Pennywise but we've no idea how much he's actually going to be in the film. They're keeping the various guises he will appear in quite under wraps as they want them to be surprises hence the lack of anything but clown footage in the trailers.
Oh, and it's got Roberto Campanella (Pyramid Head and the janitor from Silent Hill) and Javier Botet (the titular character in Mama and the hideous red thing in Crimson Peak) playing monsters. Which bodes very well indeed
On the whole, I'm hopeful but not expecting a masterpiece. I'd much rather be guarded now and be pleasantly surprised than get hyped and be disappointed!!
WhispersOfWickedness ·
04/09/2017 09:13
Stand by me, the green mile, shawshank and misery are the most faithful adaptations imo.
Others are good shows/films in their own right, but not good as adaptations (Carrie, under the dome, the shining).
Others are terrible films, spectacularly missing the point, even though the books were good (looking at you, Cujo 
).
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