DH wrote:"The Shining" Prequel Producer On Expectation
With his Dan Rather scandal-themed journalism drama "Truth" scoring potential awards notices, writer/director James Vanderbilt is looking forward to the next few months. One project he has in the works though will test him - the previously announced prequel to Stephen King's "The Shining" which he's slated to produce.
Stanely Kubrick's original film adaptation is still considered one of the landmark films of the horror genre, so anyone attempting a remake, sequel, a prequel or a reboot is bound to draw a lot of ire - like Mick Garris scored in 1997 with his mini-series adaptation despite the project nabbing two Emmy awards.
The signing of Mark Romanek ("Never Let Me Go," "One Hour Photo") to helm, Glen Mazzara ("The Walking Dead," "Damien") to script and Vanderbilt to produce the project has raised curiosity and interest. Speaking with Collider about the film, dubbed "Overlook Hotel," Vanderbilt says it isn't quite the film that people are going to expect:
"You want a real filmmaker like Mark doing it… Honestly I think people will really be excited about it, because it's not like '20 Years Before The Shining!'. I don't want to give too much away about the story but the way [screenwriter] Glen [Mazzara] cracked it and the way Mark has sort of cracked it, it's completely it's own film, which I think is super smart. It's not like, 'When Scatman Crothers was young, he…' it's not that.
One of the things that's amazing about [Mark] is that he's a strong filmmaker with his own convictions, and Mark is gonna make the movie Mark is gonna make… I think there's something wonderful about a director who says, 'No, this is the film.'
Fincher was the same way. It's like, 'This is the movie I wanna make. If you don't wanna make that movie, that's totally cool, then we won't make the movie.' And now as someone who's directed a film, that's kinda what you want. You want the captain of the ship to be like, 'I know what the film is, I know how to make it, let's go do it.'"
There's still no word as to when the film will go into production.
Re: Shining prequel
2Coming on the heels of my recent screening, well hell, even without that it sounds like a bad idea. Dunno, Fargo the TV Show did too and it ended up working fine. I like Romanek. I guess as a Walking Dead fan I can give Mazzara a chance, but this seems like one of those sacred corpses you don't pick over that way.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."
Re: Shining prequel
3I have mixed feelings on this one. It seems as silly to try to revisit one of Kubrick's films as it does a Hitchcock film. That said, 2010 is an okay film, it just pales compared to 2001. I try to take it on it's own. So it's possible to revisit the work without making a complete disaster (It does help that Clark wrote the story for both). And the Shining film strayed pretty far from the original source book (which is a good thing to me, I couldn't make it half way through the book). Kubrick took someone else's characters and setting and made them his own. Just as Romanek hopefully will. So I'll try to view this film as a separate entity and give it a chance since I like most of Romanek's work. That said, if it sucks I won't be entirely shocked either.
Just cut them up like regular chickens
Re: Shining prequel
4I think the production design will be telling, if they try to ape Kubrick's version of the Overlook then that's probably not a great thing. Hopefully they strike out on their own. And yes, adapters can always take great liberties with King as far as I'm concerned, he's a fun hack when he's at his best, but he ain't Shakespeare.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."
