Stephen King books that haven´t been filmed

CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF. SILVER BULLET was one big hallucination.

I'm dying to see The Mist, but I guess that's actually going to be a movie, so it doesn't count.

The Long Walk is my favorite of all of King's books. It'd be a challenge to pull it off, but if done right, it could be really intense.

Also, the Dark Tower, as it's currently written, is all but unfilmable. There would have to be some major changes, to the point where it wouldn't really be The Dark Tower at all.

"The Long Walk"

Yeah, it's a short story (Bachman era no less) but it's my favorite.

Rage

It's Bachman, and it's intense as hell. It'll probably never get filmed because it's about a school hostage/shooting situation.

The Talisman

Best King (and Straub) book not yet adapted for the screen.

from stephenking.com,
The Talisman: Currently in pre-production. This movie is slated for theatrical release in 2005, but no date has been set.
Click here for the IMDB page.
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Bag of Bones: The story has been optioned, but no further information is currently available.
Click here for the IMDB page.
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Desperation: Currently in post-production. Desperation is now being produced as a feature movie (not a miniseries) for ABC (no air date yet). Mick Garris, whose previous Stephen King projects include Riding the Bullet, The Stand, The Shining, Quicksilver Highway [Chattery Teeth], and Sleepwalkers, wrote the screenplay and is directing this production. Cast members include:
· Ron Perlman as Collie Entragian
· Tom Skerritt as Johnny Marinville
· Steven Weber as Steve Ames
· Matt Frewer as Ralph Carver
· Annabeth Gish as Mary Jackson
· Henry Thomas as Peter Jackson
· Charles Durning as Tom Billingsley
Click here for the Desperation movie page and exclusive, on-set photos.
Click here for the IMDB page.
Comments on Desperation
from Stephen King:
I ordinarily don’t comment far in advance on films based on my work, especially TV films, but in the case of Desperation I am going to make an exception because my old partner in crime, Mick Garris, has produced an extraordinary piece of work, and the ensemble cast is outstanding. Ron Perlman as Collie Entragian will haunt your dreams. You might want to consider making time in May (tentative) for this one, which is when ABC plans to run it.

One word of warning: this is TV and it’s impossible to tell in advance how much of a given piece of work will be cut. The version of Desperation I saw was graphic and very frightening. This may make the network uneasy.

Stephen King

A Desperation movie is very cool, but I think the best movie would be The Regulators. That was just a fun book. The Talisman is a good one too, so is The Long Walk.

missed this part:

Eyes of the Dragon: Currently in production. The story has been optioned by a French production company (WAMC Entertainment). This will be an animated feature and there is no release date set.


other:
New Short Story Release : "The Things They Left Behind" will be published in an anthology titled Transgressions, ed. by Ed McBain, with a May 2005 release date.

The Dark Tower?
While I would love to see this turned into a major motion picture undertaking, like lord of the rings, it would take a longer series of longer films to do the story justice. And I would hate to see The Dark Tower turned into some ABC miniseries crapp, it truly would break my heart. Although, it would be cool to see it on the big screen.

There's absolutely no way The Talisman can be trimmed to film length and retain anything the book had going for it.

I think King's short stories hold much more potential.

Now see, I'm the opposite, I guess it's because I read Desperation first, and just finished re-reading it, but The Regulators just turned me off, I'm reading it again now to see if maybe there was something I missed. I'm totally ready for Desperation though.

Why can't Hollywood grow a pair? Those shootings are exactly the reason why it needs to be filmed.

yeah, of all of his books i'd most like to see 3 bachmans filmed: rage - for exactly the reasons kitty& ai-joe already pointed out, the long walk - 'cause it's my favorite too, and the running man - because the arnie version bore no resemblance to a book that reads a lot like a movie script and would be fucking fantastic and relevant even today (reality shows, gov't and corporate abuse, etc)

but none of them will ever likely be done....unless darabont decides to do them or something...

Try as I might, I can't see ANY studio having the cojones to use the Running Man's original ending...not after 9/11.

I love Desperation. Such a good, chilling book. It will be interesting to see Ron Perlman's take on Entragian. I always saw him as a big, hulking brute. Can't really think of anyone in Hollywood right now that fits the bill for that. Oh well.

A friend and I were discussing this just the other day and came up with Clancy Brown. If it wasn't Ron Perlman, it should have been him since they seem interchangable.

I know...9/11 ruined what may have been the most spectacular movie ending ever! Damn terrorists!


(please note, the above should be read as tongue planted firmly in cheek)

Clancy Brown would have been great as Entragian.

As with a few others, "The Long Walk" is my fave. There's no way the movie could match the book.

"The Gunslinger" books could only be made as an HBO series. Now imagine that...every Sunday night, for one hour, we'd get to see Roland's world, uncensored. Of course, it would have to be about 40 Sundays in a row, but hey, I'd rather they not even try if they don't go the HBO route.

Actually, I'm waiting for a kick-ass version of the Talisman. An HBO mini-series, something with at least a PG-13 rating and most of the scenes kept. Especially Sunlight Home (or whatever the name was). The character of Wolf made me all weepy...And screw Black House - interesting book, but would not make a good movie or sequel to the Talisman on film.
I'll be interested to see a real director to do the Mist, too.

The ending of The Myst plays out better on the page than it would in a filmed version. I think audiences would feel cheated.

(It's the Mist, not Myst - the video game, just a little FYI )

BTW, has anyone ripped the Mist audio book to MP3? Does the "3D" effect still work?

I havent digitalized it yet, but there is no reason why doing so (if you did it correctly i.e. in stereo) would change anything about it. Sure it has some neat panning 3D fx, but it's still just a 2 track recording same as any cassette, nothing more to it than that. IN fact if you don't listen to it in headphones it doesn't seem any different than any other radio play.

it is real entertaining though. hopefully somebody will reissue this on CD in advance of the Darabont movie (assuming that movie ever really happens which after years of talk I have my doubts about). or maybe it could be a special feature on that movie's eventual DVD

I agree that there are a bunch of King short stories I'd like to see on film--like The Jaunt, The Flexible Bullet, 1408, crouch end, The Monkey, Milkman, Mrs Todd's Shortcut --I don't know why he didn't make more of any effort to hang onto the Creepshow franchise, because that could have been his signature means of mining his short stories for film, put them in a new issue Creepshow every now and then!

For awhile I doubted that the Dark Tower could ever be put to film, but after seeing Carnivale I changed my mind. HBO has shown that they can make a truly dark, creepy, often violent show involving all kinds of supernatural visions and phenomena, and do it well. What they haven't proven is that they can keep it on the air for more than two seasons (grumble, grumble). Anyway, without going into specifics, making DT work on screen would require some pretty drastic revamping of the final 2 books, but that wouldn't bother me because I didn't like the stuff that would need changing anyway. With a strong force at the helm, it could be done in three or four seasons. The way I see it:

1st season: The Gunslinger (first episode ends with the slaughter in Tull. You know, to get em hooked.) and the Drawing of the Three. Maybe some of the Little Sister's of Eluria thrown in as campfire stories Roland tells Jake.

2nd season: The Wasteland and Wizard and Glass. Early in the season have a scene were Roland begins telling the ka-tet the story about Susan and Mejis. Then intercut between that and the main plot, so that the season finale is both the beginning and end of book Wizard and Glass. Leave out the Emerald Palace though.

3rd season: This is where significant changes need to be made to the story. If you just cut out all the meta-ficitonal stuff (which I wouldn't be opposed to), you could fit the last three books fit in a single season. There's a lot of stuff that you lose with that, though, so I can see doing more adapting than cutting. In that case a 4th season might be necessary.

Anyway, that's my fanboy dream, more or less. Oh yeah, and the show's theme song should be Johnny Cash's version of Hurt.

the meta fictional stuff is where it could be really wierd and successful as a tv series. the Dark Tower intersects with so many other different King books (some of which have been filmed and some not), you could introduce that crossover stuff as stand alone epsiodes in a Dark Tower series. make the series out like a more directional twilightzone or creepshow.

Also there are a lot of vignettes and set pieces in King novels that are left out of their film adaptations. For example, the lumberjack massacre in It. so eople will probably be remaking (reinterpreting) his work for a long time.

how about a film version of On Writing (his semi-autobiography which includes his account of getting run down by a van)? it would be like the Stephen King version of Howard Stern's Private Parts

I realized that after I posted. It is just stereo panning and recording. I just ordered the CD on amazon for like 10 bucks - it'll get here tomorrow.

yep, i'd love to see them on screen.

i thought lord of the rings would be a disaster and it was pretty good, better than I thought possible. I thought hitchhikers guide was a slam dunk and was disappointed so I have quit thinking I know what is and is not possible.

Good or bad though, I'd like to see someone take a crack at the dark tower series.

I think we'll see the Dark Tower series adapted at some point or another, just not anytime soon. As for upcoming adaptations that I am looking forward to.....

Desperation - Looks fairly promising. Dir. Mick Garris.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon - George Romero will begin filming this one this summer supposedly.

The Mist - Frank Darabont always does wonders with the works of King.

The Long Walk - Darabont owns the rights to this one as well.

The Talisman - Spielberg/Dreamworks are still bent on this one getting made, they just need a new director.

TNT's Nightmares & Dreamscapes - Anthology series for next year based on 8 short stories from Nightmares & Dreamscapes of course. Mick Garris and Larry Cohen are among those involved, with Garris adapting "Home Delivery".



What would I like to see adapted beyond all of that? I think I'd like to see new adaptations of Firestarter and The Tommyknockers. On a sidenote, the rights for the Eyes of the Dragon have expired, so that one's back on the market again. Also, both It and Pet Sematary are up for remakes apparently.

I am in agreement with Fett. Cycle of the Werewolf is one of Kings's greatest short stories(though it is published under the term novella it is a short story in terms of length) and Silver Bullet basically just took a huge steaming shit on everything that made the story so great. Cycle of the Werewolf deserves a totally faithful, well executed movie.

Otherwise I would love to see a movie of his short stories "Rainy Season," "Dolan's Cadillac," or the novel Insomnia.

Insomnia has to be one of the most ironically titled books of all time.

Old people see colors. Hooray!

P.S. That book sucked.

I liked Insomnia, but I loved Bag of Bones. I'd adore seeing that one up on the big screen.

Actually, I thought Insomnia was pretty great, creepy little story line with some cool DT elements for good measure.

I only read it because of the Dark Tower connection, but sweet jesus it went on forEVER. The beginning moments are creepy and have potential - the early visions, the doctors, etc. The it just gets really cheesy and repetitive. Colors and deathbags and holding hands and floating through walls. Plus, if you hadn't read the DT series, I'd imagine the events of the entire book would seem completely pointless.

Actually I had only read the first two Dark Tower novels at the time that I read this and did not even realize that there were elements that tied into the Dark Tower series until I read it a second time. Upon that first reading I still considered it one of my favorite King novels.

Didn't King himself write the screenplay for Silver Bullet? Just curious.

I always thought his short story "The Ten O'Clock People" would make a great "They Live"-type film where the heroes are able to see the creatures because of their nicotine addiction.

yeah I always wondered whether King saw They Live (1988) before he wrote that story (1993)

There's a huge one at the very end of the story that I won't spoil for you...

That's the one that sticks out the most in my mind.

There's a bunch of them that you won't miss, and there's a character in Insomnia that features sort of heavily in the Dark Tower, but the connection is flimsy at best. I picked up Insomnia in the first place because the Dark Tower mentioned that it was the lynchpin of all of King's books that were tied to the Tower itself. Well, it isn't really. It's just a book about hallucinating old people.

Quote:

Haven't read the Running Man book, but the terrorists ruined the ending to INSOMNIA as well.

 

 

Or maybe the terrorists were big King fans and got their ideas from him. KA IS A WHEEL!
 

 

They're shooting the 'Bag of Bones' miniseries with Pierce Brosnan in town here now. PRetty badass as I loved the book, I got a few days work on it, my buddy did alot of the effects and another friend of mine is doing 2nd AD work on it.

I think "Buried" and "127 Hours" are both cases in point that "Gerald's Game" can work on the big screen even if the protag's given very little wiggle room.

MISERY also showed the potential IMO.

 

Oh God, how I'd love to see a 'Gerald's Game' movie. That book was absolutely brilliant, and seeing that thing onscreen would be killer, especially the court room reveal at the very end. That would scare the shit out of the audience.

Those two weird-as-fuck "Milkman" stories in Skeleton Crew, from what I guess was an aborted novel.

 

They're dollar-baby stories, too.

 

Always wanted to see someone with a weird sensibility flesh that out a bit.

I would love to see Under the Dome done as a miniseries.