The trailers for It suggest that it’s going to be one of the scariest films of the year. But if it reaches this height, then it will have done so without the help of its author, Stephen King, who has admitted that he wasn’t involved in the adaptation at all.
During a recent interview with Variety, King was quizzed about how much input he had on the remake of It, and it turns out it was zilch. “I wasn’t involved at all. I wished them well. Geez, I don’t even think they sent me any swag from that one! But maybe that’s a good thing,” King remarked.
Despite being overlooked when it came to precious swag Stephen King still only had positive things to say about It, as he added, “I’ve seen it, it’s fabulous.” If you think that Stephen King might be a little bias when it comes to his own material, you are very much mistaken.
That’s because the author has had no issue taking filmmakers to task for their treatment of his work. Not even Stanley Kubrick could escape Stephen King’s scorn. The writer still has some issues with The Shining, too, because King attacked it as recently as 2015, some 25 years after the film was released into cinemas.
“The book is hot, and the movie is cold; the book ends in fire, and the movie in ice. In the book, there’s an actual arc where you see this guy, Jack Torrance, trying to be good, and little by little he moves over to this place where he’s crazy. And as far as I was concerned, when I saw the movie, Jack was crazy from the first scene,” King explained to Rolling Stone.
“I had to keep my mouth shut at the time. It was a screening, and Nicholson was there. But I’m thinking to myself the minute he’s on the screen, ‘Oh, I know this guy. I’ve seen him in five motorcycle movies, where Jack Nicholson played the same part.’ And it’s so misogynistic. I mean, Wendy Torrance is just presented as this sort of screaming dishrag. But that’s just me, that’s the way I am.”
It’s not just The Shining, though. The Running Man, Dreamcatcher, Firestarter and Maximum Overdrive have also felt King’s wrath, so he’s clearly a hard man to please. The fact that It’s director Andres Muschietti has achieved just that bodes very well ahead of the film’s release on September 8.
