Stephen King recently revisited the world of The Shining with a semi-sequel novel, Doctor Sleep. It’s not surprising that Hollywood has reignited interest in the world of Stephen King’s book.
However as the new novel is only tangentially connected to the events and places of The Shining, Warner Bros has been working on a more straightforward prequel, Overlook Hotel.
Glenn Mazzara (The Walking Dead) has already been set to write the script. Now they may have found a director, as Variety reports Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo, Never Let Me Go).
Overlook Hotel is an original tale, but one based on a prologue Stephen King originally wrote for The Shining, but eventually ended up deleting. The script follows, ‘the origin story of the Overlook Hotel through the eyes of its first owner, Bob T. Watson. A robber baron at the turn of the 20th century, Watson scaled the remote peaks of the Colorado Rockies to build the grandest resort in America, and a place he and his family would also call home’.
However, it’s safe to say things didn’t go completely to plan, with the strangeness eventually leading Jack Torrance and his family to the hotel many decades later – even if he may have been there all along.
You’d have to be brave to take on writing a prequel to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, a movie that’s become a classic and has spawned so many theories as to what it’s all about it even spawned the recent documentary, Room 237.