Warner Brothers Considering a Prequel to The Shining

photo credit: LA TIMES

Jack Nicholson waits as director Stanley Kubrick 

sets up a shot for the 1980 classic film "The Shining." 

(The Stanley Kubrick Estate / July 28, 2012)

HERE'S JOHNNY AGAIN!, the The Los Angeles Times announces.  The times is reporting that Warner Brothers is "exploring the possibility of a prequel to 'The Shining.'"

Times reporter Steven Zeitchik writes:

Warner Bros.is quietly exploring the possibility of a prequel to “The Shining,” the 1980 Stanley Kubrickchillfest that many fans regard as the scariest movie of all time. The studio has solicited the involvement of Hollywood writer-producer Laeta Kalogridis and her partners Bradley Fischer and James Vanderbilt to craft a new take as producers, according to a person familiar with the project who was not authorized to talk about it publicly.

What happened at the hotel before Jack Torrance and his family arrived?  According to the novel, the old caretaker went crazy under the influence of evil spirits at the hotel and killed his entire family. So. . .the new movie would focus on the terrible events surrounding the death of the former caretakers family at the overlook.  Of course, this is exactly the same plot as the King novel, except instead of escaping – the family gets slaughtered instead.

King once said that his original plan for The Shining involved the entire Torrance family getting killed. Check out my article, "Alternate Ending To The Shining."  King is quoted in In Tim Underwood's book, Stephen King Goes To Hollywood:

"The Shining' was open right until the end. I didn't know what was going to happen until the very end. The shows in the book. The original plan was for them all to die up there and for Danny to become the controlling force o the hotel after he died. And the psychic force of the hotel would go up exponentially. . . But I got connected with the kid.

In the first draft of the book Jack beats his wife to death with the mallet and it was blood and brains and everything. It was really just terrible and I couldn't do it. I couldn't leave it that way." S.K. Goes To Hollywood, p.76

Oh, my favorite line from the Times article: "there's no word yet on whether there will be a movie adaptation of the new novel."  King doesn't even have to write sequel's to his own work for them to make children of the Corn part 304.

The Times Article is HERE.