Stephen King names the best Stephen King adaptation: “My favourite thing of mine”
Every major studio – and, latterly, streaming service – in Hollywood apparently has a big red button marked ‘Stephen King adaptation’ that it can and will press whenever the need for a new feature film or TV series arises.
It’s turned the prolific author into an equally prolific goldmine for the entertainment industry, but the biggest danger that comes with returning to the same back catalogue so often is that the consistency stands a very good chance of being splayed all over the shop.
That’s exactly what’s happened in the wake of Hollywood’s relentless obsession with mining King’s bibliography, giving rise to a smattering of classics and more than a touch of shite. For every Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption, or The Green Mile, there’s a Dreamcatcher, Sleepwalkers, and The Dark Tower to balance the scales of quality.
King isn’t involved in all of them, although he’s regularly listed in the credits as a ceremonial executive producer and occasionally screenwriter. If anyone can adapt his prose for the screen better than anyone else, then it stands to reason the person who wrote it would be near the top of the list, which is why his pick for the finest movie or TV show inspired by his back catalogue makes perfect sense.
It isn’t technically an adaptation, either, with King crafting an original story. Instead of the industry combing through his novels, novellas, and short stories for inspiration, network ABC opted to cut out the middle man and enlist the titan of terror to concoct a nightmarish tale from the ground up. Seizing the opportunity with relish, the end result was the writer’s top pick for the best spin on his work.
“My favourite thing of mine is Storm of the Century, which I thought really succeeded,” he told the Los Angeles Review of Books. “It’s very much like a Friedrich Dürrenmatt play called The Visit.” The playwright’s production follows a rich older woman who returns to her hometown promising enough money to revitalise the area, so long as the locals murder the man who got her pregnant and abandoned her.
It’s pretty dark stuff, and it’s easy to see how it inspired King. In Storm of the Century, Colm Feore’s Andre Linoge is the mysterious stranger who descends upon Little Tall Island, Maine, in the midst of a blizzard. He knows the residents’ names, histories, and darkest secrets and uses that information to make their lives a living hell with a simple yet dangerous mantra: “Give me what I want, and I’ll go away.”
The three-part miniseries premiered in February 1999 and drew almost 20million viewers, so it was popular at the time. However, it isn’t often spoken of in the same high regard as King’s other memorable contributions to film and television, which, by extension, makes Storm of the Century something of an unheralded gem.
