Stephen King is one of the most successful authors of all time, and due to his incredible output as a writer, he’s been a veritable gold mine for Hollywood. Not only did he write the stories behind some of the most iconic horror stories of our time like The Shining, Misery, Cujo, It, and The Dead Zone, but he also wrote some of the more uplifting stories of the past twenty years. Believe it or not, he actually wrote both of the stories behind The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile.
“Under the Dome” promotional art
The latest miniseries to be based on his own work is Under the Dome, a story about a small town in Maine that becomes trapped under a mysterious impenetrable energy dome. The miniseries has been produced by Steven Spielburg’s Amblin Television.
King says:
“It’s not exactly like the book. It’s like a pogo stick: It hits big set pieces in the book, then bounces in its own direction. So that’s fine. You know what’ll happen is the purists who loved the book will probably scream, ‘Well, this is different and that isn’t there… But I think most people are going to like it. I hope they will.”
As a fan of King’s books, I have at times become a bit frustrated with some of the liberties that Hollywood have taken with his material. It took me a long time to accept Kubrick’s version of The Shining because it was so very different from the novel that I’d read. However, with this particular story, I fully recognize that there are some aspects of the original novel that desperately need changing. I adore Uncle Stevie, but the dialogue that he gave a couple of modern skater kids was so bad that I couldn’t help but wrinkle up my nose.
King also explained the kinds of stories that he grew up on and influenced him as a writer.
“I grew up in a house where we didn’t have a TV until I was 10. We couldn’t afford one. We used to go down the street and peek in the neighbors’ window to watch Your Hit Parade. Books were what we had—and the radio. My mother was a reader, and she read to us. She read us Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when I was six and my brother was eight; I never forgot it…And we used to get Classics Illustrated comic books, which were also fairly bloody. I still remember the Oliver Twist one—there was blood all over that thing. Comic books were the closest we had to a visual medium.”
Under the Dome debuts on June 24th on CBS.
What do you think of what King had to say about Under the Dome? Do you approve of the idea that they’ll be making some changes to the source material? Why don’t you just tell us what you think of the
Source: Parade Central