Stephen King’s two favourite movie adaptations of his own work
Ever since Brian De Palma’s Carrie exploded into cinemas in 1976 to become a critical and commercial phenomenon – not to mention an iconic example of cinematic horror – adapting the works of Stephen King has remained one of the most consistent sources of film and television content around.
With dozens of feature-length and episodic reinventions of his prose having made it to multiplexes and living rooms in the near half-century since, the quality has understandably run the gamut from the classic to the ill-advised. There are many page-to-screen translations that King has found severely lacking, but two in particular stand out as the cream of the crop.
Rather ironically, though, neither of them are cut from the supernatural cloth on which the author built his name and reputation. Instead, a pair of moving dramas hailing from acclaimed filmmakers were named by King as his personal favourites, with Rob Reiner’s 1986 coming-of-age story Stand by Me and Frank Darabont’s indelible 1994 prison saga The Shawshank Redemption being held up as the finest adaptations in the eyes of their creator.
While King isn’t obligated to like what Hollywood does to his bibliography, he did make a point to Deadline that his enjoyment of both Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption extended far beyond a mere appreciation of their narrative and thematic merits: “Oh yeah. I like, well I have a number that I like, but I love The Shawshank Redemption and I’ve always enjoyed working with Frank. He’s a sweet guy. Frank Darabont. And I love the Rob Reiner thing, Stand by Me.”
King even went so far as to acknowledge that the screenplay for the latter improved upon the source material, with Reiner revealing to Variety that the originator of the story wishes he’d written one scene, in particular, the first time around. He said: “In the book, when they have the face-off at the end and they stare down the gang of older boys who want to take back the body, it was Chris Chambers who picks up the gun. As we were going through, Andy Scheinman said ‘What if Gordie picks up the gun?’ Keeping with the whole idea that it’s Gordie’s journey. When we screened it for Stephen King, he says, ‘When you had Gordie pick up that gun, I thought, why didn’t I have that?'”
As for The Shawshank Redemption, King noted in an interview with the Oscars that he didn’t even think Darabont would be able to get the project off the ground before eventually realising something special was happening: “I never thought he’d get it produced, because it was too textured and novelistic,” he said. “When I first saw it, I realized he’d made not just one of the best movies ever done from my work, but a potential movie classic. That turned out to be the case, but he continued working almost up to the moment the film was released.”
Of course, Darabont returned to the well further down the line with The Green Mile and The Mist, but the author remains thrilled that “Shawshank is its own thing – an American icon – and I’m delighted to have been a part of it”. Tales of terror may be his stock-in-trade, but when it comes to adapting his own back catalogue, King tends to have a soft spot for the more intimate, character-driven stories.
