In making ‘Doctor Sleep‘, Mike Flanagan had a huge problem to solve. On the one hand, the film is technically a follow up to Stanley Kubrick’s take on ‘The Shining’ which is widely regarded as one of the best films ever made. However, on the other hand, Stephen King hated Kubrick’s adaptation of his work and Flanagan had to be sure to stay true to King’s vision of the sequel and original novel. The differences in these two could easily have caused a conundrum that would have required the creator to just write off one of the two iterations.
Thankfully, he found a way around that. Flanagan has always stated that this is a sequel to the novel and not the book but now is also sharing this tidbit:
“I think you do have to acknowledge that. There is no version of the world where I am trying not to acknowledge one of the greatest films ever made. There’s no upside in shying away from that reality. At the same time, this is not The Shining. It’s its own story and in a very specific way. If you’ve read the book, you know exactly why it’s so different, but it’s quite a tightrope that we’re walking I think. I’m having a great time doing it. I’m just going to get the movie out and then turn off the internet for two weeks and see how it all goes.”
It will be interesting to see how the director can still channel the film with how different aspects of it were compared to the novel. It could be something as simple as using some visuals that would be related to the original film without talking about it, but we’ll see when the movie is released.
How do you think we’ll see ‘Doctor Sleep’ reference the cinematic version of ‘The Shining’ without taking away from Stephen King’s story? Do you think that it will be something as simple as images of the Overlook Hotel or perhaps a picture of Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance or Shelley Duvall as Wendy? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Source: Bloody-Disgusting
