ith Stephen King movies you get the good, the bad, the ugly and the endless Children of the Corn sequels. With this feature film guide, British writer Stephen Jones focuses on all King's cinematic and television adaptations. Stephen King once said in an interview, "Here's this story. If somebody wants to make it into a movie—I love movies." That love for the cinema might account for the more than 50 adaptations of his work.
Some of the highlights of the book include:
Carrie was made into a movie by Brian De Palma only two years after King's paperback publication of the book. The movie launched his career onto the bestseller list.
Stanley Kubrick would call the Master of Suspense from England at odd hours of the day and night while making The Shining. Once he asked King, "Do you believe in God?"
Two days after Rob Reiner began directing Stand By Me (from "The Body," a novella in Different Seasons), the studio was sold and the project was dropped. Norman Lear, who produced the All in the Family TV series, personally came up with the $8 million budget so the film could be made.
Director and screenwriter Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile) once made The Women in the Room as a student film. Three years after King sold the rights for the video for only one dollar, Darabont and Greg Melton (producer/art director) completed a short film of it for $35,000. It was one of the author's personal favorites.
The first film for which Stephen King wrote a screenplay was Creepshow. The first film of his own books for which King wrote a screenplay was Silver Bullet (or Stephen King's Silver Bullet). The first movie filmed partially in Maine was Creepshow 2. The first movie to be filmed entirely in Maine was Pet Sematary.
Stand By Me, Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile weren't marketed as Stephen King films, but were some of the highest-grossing King films.
Two Stephens create one kingly book
A book on Stephen King's films was inevitable. What makes Creepshows a delight is that it fell into the hands of Stephen Jones, someone who knows the genre inside and out and who is one of Britain's most acclaimed anthologists of dark fantasy and horror, with more than 70 books to his credit. He is a 13-time recipient of the British Fantasy Award, has two World Fantasy Awards, three Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Awards and two International Horror guild Awards, and is more than capable of handling such a monster project.
Jones did a fantastic job covering all aspects of King's movies. He uses over 60 sources of material for Creepshows and has horror artist Bernie Wrightson, director Darabont and authors Peter Straub, Harlan Ellison, Dennis Etchinson and David J. Schow contributing material for the book.
Jones gives the source material more respect than mainstream critics would dare. He remains objective most
of the time, never getting too heavy-handed, even considering the many lame sequels.
The book also includes an in-depth interview with King, focusing on his film and television productions as well as his books.
Rounding out the package are a report on forthcoming projects of King films, a section on unproduced projects, a list of all the cameos that King made in films (15 at the moment), a bibliography of the behind-the-scenes players and an index to the stars of King movies.
Besides synthesizing all this data, Jones includes plot summaries for the films, production histories, cast listings, an introduction by film director and screenwriter Mick Garris and "Fact File" trivia in the margins.
