November 2023 is coming to an end this week, and as per usual, there is plenty going on in the world of Stephen King. In the last couple days, I interviewed Henry Thomas about his extensive history making King adaptations, learning some great stuff about those various projects – but there is also a fresh 4K UHD release to review, and there is news about one long in-the-works King movie potentially finding new life.
This week’s edition of The King Beat is a fun one, with some behind the scenes trivia about — one of the best Stephen King movies — Doctor Sleep, a look at Scream Factory’s restored release of Silver Bullet, and an exciting update about Richard Bachman’s The Long Walk. Let’s dig in!
Mike Flanagan Didn’t Prepare Henry Thomas For The Jack Torrance Flashbacks In Doctor Sleep
Writer/director Mike Flanagan took on one hell of a challenge in adapting Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep/making a sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, but he arguably gave the hardest job of all to actor Henry Thomas. Though credited as simply “The Bartender,” Thomas essentially took on the responsibility of bringing Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance back to the big screen… and shoes don’t get much bigger to fill for an actor. Fortunately, pop culture history smiles upon him, as he delivers a phenomenal performance – but it makes it all the more amazing to know that he was apparently kept in the dark about aspects of his role.
With Henry Thomas’ latest Stephen King movie, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, set to be released on home video in December, I had the incredible pleasure of doing a full King retrospective interview with the actor earlier this week, and one of the fascinating things I learned about his Doctor Sleep performance concerned the movie’s flashback moments when Rose The Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) is torturing Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor) for his steam. I asked him if there was a surreal quality to recreating iconic moments from The Shining, and he explained that there was, and it was in part because he didn’t know until the last minute that they would be a part of his performance:
Yeah, it was because I wasn’t really aware that I was gonna be doing that . You know, I just kind of thought I was coming in for those scenes and that was it. I didn’t realize like that I would have to like roam the corridors with the ax and all of that stuff and reenact the scene on the stairs and all of this.
If you watch the director’s cut of Doctor Sleep, Henry Thomas’ The Bartender has two main scenes that play back-to-back: first, he meets with McGregor’s Dan Torrance in The Gold Room (where he mirrors the role played by Joe Turkel’s Lloyd from The Shining), and then the “father and son” go to the bathroom to clean up a spilled drink (where he mirrors the role played by Philip Stone’s Delbert Grady). Thomas was evidently only expecting to shoot those scenes… but then Mike Flanagan had him recreate some of the most memorable scenes from Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film – including hunting through the halls of The Overlook with an ax and stalking Wendy Torrance on the stairs).
The way that Henry Thomas describes the experience makes it sound like it was practically alien to him. In order to look like an on-screen facsimile of Jack Nicholson, he had to undergo a major physical transformation that was accomplished both with practical makeup and with digital effects. He explains that he put a lot of faith in the hands of Mike Flanagan and the different departments behind the scenes of Doctor Sleep, saying,
I kind of felt odd as well because I had to shave my head for the part, and I was in this wig and all this get up, and I just kind of felt like… you feel very artificial But you have to trust the people that you’re working with and do your best, put your best foot forward. And I think with the help of CGI, I think they achieved it, because there was a lot of post-production done. But if the post-production budget had been included with my salary… I couldn’t have done a better job, but I’d be living a better life.
Doctor Sleep was the third movie that Henry Thomas made with Mike Flanagan (following Ouija: Origin Of Evil and Gerald’s Game), and their fourth project overall (including The Haunting Of Hill House). They have since worked together four more times (on The Haunting Of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club and The Fall Of The House Of Usher), though it appears that he is not part of the ensemble in Flanagan’s upcoming Stephen King adaptation The Life Of Chuck.
In the weeks ahead, be sure to keep an eye on CinemaBlend for more from my Stephen King-centric interview with Henry Thomas – and for those of you aiming to build the Ultimate Stephen King collection, you’ll be able to add Pet Sematary: Bloodlines to your library on December 19. And while on the subject of new 4K UHD releases…
Scream Factory Delivers Another Win With The Silver Bullet 4K UHD Collector’s Edition
Another week, another new Scream Factory 4K UHD Stephen King movie!
Just in time for Thanksgiving viewing, my preordered copy of Tales From The Darkside: The Movie arrived in the mail last week (as I wrote about in The King Beat this past Thursday), and it turns out that it was just a few days ahead of the new restoration of Dan Attias’ Silver Bullet. The releases actually share a lot in common, both positive and negative, but both are welcomed additions to my Stephen King library.
Like Tales From The Darkside: The Movie, this is the second time that Scream Factory has put out a Collector’s Edition of Silver Bullet, as they previously put together a beautiful package for the werewolf film in December of 2019… but that was just on Blu-ray. The 4K UHD carries over all of the special features that were previously included, but it also features a new commentary track by the wonderful Eric Vespe and Scott Wampler (the co-hosts of the podcast The Kingcast).
An underrated Stephen King adaptation with a screenplay by the author himself, Silver Bullet is definitely worth adding to your King collection in 4K UHD if you don’t already have the Scream Factory Blu-ray – but even if you do, it’s worth picking up. Both the 4K and Blu-ray discs in the set feature a Dolby Vision transfer from the original negative, and it can be said that the movie hasn’t looked this good since theaters. The colors are much richer and scenes are more vibrant, as you can tell in the Blu-ray screenshots below (the 2023 version is on the left, the 2019 version is on the right).
If you’re looking for a gift for the Stephen King fan in your life as we get deeper and deeper into the holiday season, you should make a move over to the Scream Factory website.
The Long Walk Has A New Director And Studio Attached, So Will It Now Finally Get Made?
Between fresh 4K UHD home video releases, Holly hitting stores, The Life Of Chuck starting and completing production, optimism about The Dark Tower, and news about Salem’s Lot finally being released, the last few months have provided a lot of positivity for Stephen King fans… but one negative development in the mix was the last report about the adaptation of The Long Walk. In August, CinemaBlend reported that director André Øvredal was no longer signed on to direct the film, leaving the feature in a nebulous state. That was a bummer to learn, but the latest update about the project is an exciting one, as The Long Walk is now in the works at a new studio and has a new director attached: The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes filmmaker Francis Lawrence.
Lawrence first revealed his plans to turn The Long Walk into a movie earlier this month in an interview with Business Insider. The filmmaker was asked about the long list of projects that he currently has in the works – including Constantine 2, I Am Legend 2 and Bioshock – and he revealed in his response that he is also trying to make his first Stephen King adaptation:
I’m now attached to The Long Walk, the Stephen King book. Very excited about that.
Published under King’s notorious pseudonym Richard Bachman, The Long Walk was the first novel that Stephen King ever wrote, but it wasn’t released until 1979 (five years after Carrie). Protagonist Ray Garraty is one of 100 teenage boys who participate in an endurance contest that sees them walking on a stretch of highway at a rate of at least four miles per hour without any breaks. Contestants are only given three warnings if they slow down or stop, and the penalty for either failing to continue after three warnings or attempting escape is execution. The last boy standing wins money and a prize of his choice – assuming he can hold on to his sanity.
It’s a powerful and horrifying piece of dystopian fiction, and as such, it’s understandable that it would attract the attention of the director who made the last four Hunger Games movies. Not only is Francis Lawrence attached to helm, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, Lionsgate (the studio behind the Hunger Games franchise) has acquired the rights to the book. Up-and-coming filmmaker JT Mollner has been hired to pen the script.
In a statement about the development of The Long Walk, Joe Drake, chair of the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group said,
When you have enjoyed the strong creative collaboration and success that we have had working with Francis, you want to repeat that experience as much as possible. We couldn’t be more excited about reuniting with him on The Long Walk. He is a truly unparalleled talent.
Between Francis Lawrence’s full plate of projects and the inherent challenges of making a movie that is exclusively about teenagers performing a death march, it isn’t clear how quickly The Long Walk will move through development, but fingers are crossed that this latest attempt at an adaptation will be the first to make it to principal photography.
Recommendation Of The Week: “The End Of The Whole Mess”
Preparing to talk with Henry Thomas this week had me looking back at his full Stephen King filmography, and while most of the adaptations he’s made have been based on novels (Desperation, Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep and Pet Sematary), “The End Of The Whole Mess” episode of Nightmares And Dreamscapes is an exception. Its source material is the terrific short story of the same name featured in the 1993 omnibus Nightmares & Dreamscapes – and to prepare you for my full interview with Thomas dropping next month, I’m naming it as The King Beat’s Recommendation Of The Week for the end of November 2023.
Written as a series of journal entries, the story has narrator Howard Fornoy reflecting on his life with his genius younger brother, Bobby Fornoy (who King partially based on his own brother, Dave). Bobby is a prodigy who grows up to be horrified by the self-destructive nature of humankind, and he attempts to use science to mitigate it. At first it seems that his efforts are brilliantly successful, and he is hailed as a hero, but then the world begins to slowly discover the horrible consequences of his work. It’s an excellent story about the burden of intelligence with shades of Flowers For Algernon, and like Daniel Keyes’ book, it’s ultimately both powerful and exceptionally depressing.
That does it for this week’s edition of The King Beat, but be sure to head back here to CinemaBlend next Thursday for my latest column, and meanwhile, you can explore my Adapting Stephen King series – diving into the full history of King’s works adapted for film and television.