Stephen King names the worst literary adaptation in cinema history: “My favourite example”
If there is one man who knows what he is talking about when explaining the pitfalls and peaks of cinematic adaptations of books, it is Stephen King. The writer is not only one of the most prolific and popular authors of all time, but a gigantic proportion of his manuscripts have found their way to becoming hit movies. With at least 55 feature film adaptations of his work, there is nobody better placed to tell you when someone else’s adaptation is a massive flop.
That’s because, as well as getting credit for some of the most beloved movies of all time, see The Shawshank Redemption, The Shining, Misery and The Green Mile for proof, he has also been a part of some real stinkers.
Maximum Overdrive is routinely considered one of the worst adaptations of all time, while Tobe Hooper’s attempt to get The Mangler off the page and onto the screen was equally, shall we say, mangled. One of the more curious moments of disappointing the author came when, in his mind, Stanley Kubrick interpreted King’s protagonist in The Shining, Jack Torrance, incorrectly. Meaning a movie doesn’t ghave to be a bad experience to upset the original writer.
Having experience of being both pleased and despondent with the adaptations of his work means he has a new outlook on what many authors might assume to be a tough process. Speaking with Feast of Fear, King opened up about whether it bothers him that a movie is faithful to the book. “I love the movies,” he explained. “I love to go to good horror movies. As for my own books, well, you have to make a basic decision: do you want to sell to the movies or not? What it comes down to is, you have to take a ‘worst case’ attitude—if they screw this up, how am I going to feel?”
It’s a fair conversation to have with yourself. The truth is, for any writer, being edited is always the worst part of the process. To then extrapolate that feeling into someone enacting your vision, casting your characters and perhaps even inflicting their own motivations could be enough to put you off forever. For King, it was simple: “I talked that over with myself, and what I came up with was: I don’t care if they destroy it, if they make a terrible movie out of this book, because they can’t destroy the book. The book stands.”
Despite being endlessly connected with cinema, King determines that his dedication to the literary world will always trump what happens in the cinema: “I’m a book person. Movies are very nice, but they’re not high art the way I think books are high art.”
However, that doesn’t mean books can’t be ruined by their movies, and King picked out perhaps the most obvious example of the ‘worst case scenario’ he mentioned: “Sometimes a perfect book becomes a terrible movie. My favourite example of that is The Day of the Dolphin; I thought it was a lovely book, but Mike Nichols just didn’t do it right.”
Starring George C Scott and based on the Robert Merle novel, the picture tried to stay somewhat faithful to the 1967 release, complete with talking dolphins, but the movie fell flat for more than one critic. The premise is a strange one for audiences and likely lacked the nuance of the book. Nicholls claimed it was the toughest shoot of his career, and the movie bore witness to this.
If you wanted proof that King was the ultimate author when it comes to cinematic adaptations, then you need only look at his selection for the worst ever made to convince yourself of his knowledge.
