Stephen King’s favourite Stephen King movies: “I have a number that I like”
Without the influence of author Stephen King, it would be difficult to picture what the landscape of modern horror would even look like. Penning such classic novels as Carrie, The Shining and It, King’s uncompromising imagination has brought some of the most terrifying monsters and scenarios to life through celebrated books and remarkable movie adaptations.
A very particular creative who knows what he likes and is vocal about what he doesn’t, King regularly calls out movies that he doesn’t think fulfil the brief. Such goes for classic movies too, famously despising Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of King’s own novel, The Shining, despite the adaptation being praised by fans and critics for its creepy atmosphere and terrific performances from Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall.
“I think The Shining is a beautiful film, and it looks terrific,” the author once exclaimed about the 1980 film before adding: “As I’ve said before, it’s like a big, beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside it. In that sense, when it opened, a lot of the reviews weren’t very favourable, and I was one of those reviewers. I kept my mouth shut at the time, but I didn’t care for it much”.
In addition to Kubrick’s movie, King also named two others he wasn’t so keen on during an interview with Deadline in 2016. “I guess there are a number of pictures that I feel like, a little bit like, yuck,” the author stated, “There’s one, Graveyard Shift, that was made in the ’80s. Just kind of a quick exploitation picture. I could do without all of the Children of the Corn sequels”.
But enough of the negativity. What about the adaptations of his novels that he really loves? There is certainly a bounty of movies that fans love, with The Green Mile ranking up there with the very best, as well as Frank Darabont’s Shawshank Redemption, which is often considered to be one of the very best movies ever made. The latter of these movies is favoured by King, stating his favourites later in the same interview.
“I like, well, I have a number that I like,” King started when asked for his favourite adaptation, “but I love The Shawshank Redemption, and I’ve always enjoyed working with Frank. He’s a sweet guy. Frank Darabont.” King actually gave away the rights to the novel for a nominal fee as part of his “dollar babies” programme.
This programme was started by King back in 1982, though he only publicly acknowledged it in 1996, stating in the introduction of The Shawshank Redemption: The Shooting Script, “Around 1977 or so, when I started having some popular success, I saw a way to give back a little of the joy the movies had given me”.
Continuing, King recalls, “’77 was the year young filmmakers – college students, for the most part – started writing me about the stories I’d published (first in Night Shift, later in Skeleton Crew), wanting to make short films out of them. Over the objections of my accountant, who saw all sorts of possible legal problems, I established a policy which still holds today. I will grant any student filmmaker the right to make a movie out of any short story I have written…so long as the film rights are still mine to assign.”
It opened up a world of possibilities. Darabont became one such baby when he adapted King’s 1978 story The Woman in the Mist into a 30-minute short that would come close to a nomination for an Academy Award. King tells the story of their meeting as Darabont requested to adapt the story of Shawshank Redemption: “I said, ‘Sure, Frank, I’d love it.’ He said, ‘Well, OK, how much?’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t know, man. Send me a cheque for $1,000 and write the screenplay, and if something happens with it, maybe we’ll all make a little money, and if nothing happens with it, I’ll send your cheque back’.”
“Everybody made a lot of money, and I had Frank’s $1,000 cheque framed and sent it back to him,” King revealed. But that’s not the only King movie adaptation that the novelist loves. He continued: “And I love the Rob Reiner thing, Stand by Me”.
Stand By Me certainly has enough richness to capture the integrity of King’s book. Usually, it is this quality which King holds dearest. Whereas Kubrick took The Shining to a new space, Reiner keeps very close to the original text. For that reason, it is given the ‘favourite’ pedestal.
Interestingly, both of King’s own favourites were adaptations of his novellas rather than his full-length stories. Both Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption and The Body remain two of King’s very best tales, with much of the stories being left up to the imagination, allowing both respective filmmakers to thrive without being restricted to source material.
Stephen King’s favourite Stephen King movies:
- The Shawshank Redemption – Frank Darabont
- Stand By Me – Rob Reiner
