Stephen King by the Box Office

Sky Movies has an interesting slide slow titled "Stephen King By The Box Office."  It looks at 34 of King's movies, and tells us how it did at the box office.  Each movie not only lists what it took in at the box office, but tries to adjust for inflation.

The site notes, "Box office figures from BoxOfficeMojo.com. Inflation calculated with the USInflationCalculator.com."

Here's the breakdown:

• $134,711 , Riding The Bullet. The article notes, "The film bombed at the box office after receiving a deserved critical panning and holds the unenviable record of the lowest grossing Stephen King adaptation to date"
• $125,397 , The Night Flier.  (Sky Movies adjusts for inflation, giving it $182,467)
• $1,781,383 , The Mangler
•  $8,863,193 , Apt Pupil
• $7,433,663 , Maximum Overdrive.  I like this from the article, "Picking up two Razzie nominations for King and the film’s star, Emilio Estevez, the film was universally panned. However, despite even King writing it off as “the worst adaptation of his work”, it managed to reclaim $7,433,663 of its $9 million budget- just under $16 million in today’s money."
• $10,611,160 , The Dark Half
• $11,582,891, Graveyard Shift
• $15,315,484, Thinner.  WAIT. . . Thinner made it this far up on the list?  "Thinner performed reasonably upon release, helped by the fact that it was attached to Michael Jackson’s short film, Ghosts, also co-written by King."  Oh, that explains it.
• $15,185,672, Needful Things
• $12,361,866, Silver Bullet "Silver Bullet divided opinion at the time but has slowly gained something of a cult following over the years."  count me in the cult.
• $13,086,297, Cats Eyes
• $14,568,989, Children of the Corn.  Don't we wish that had been the last dollar that franchise would make?
• $24,361,867, Dolores Claiborne.
• $17,080,167, Fire Starter
• $30,919,415, Hearts in Atlantis
• $28,341,469, The Shawhank Redemption
• $20,766,616, The Dead Zone
• $21,017,849, Christine
• £30,524,763, Sleepwalkers (say it ain't so!)
• $21,156,152, Cujo
• $21,028,755, Creepshow
• $32,100,816, The Lawnmower Man  "This sci-fi horror baffled audiences and divided critics at the time, but it still opened at number two in the box office behind Wayne’s World and spawned a sequel in the form of 1996’s Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace."  For the record, I really hated  this film.  I feel good about that.
• $38,122,105, The Running Man
• $59,006,619, Carrie 2013 "the film has already done decent business in the US and looks set to easily clear the $60 million mark."
• $57,293,715, The Mist
• $75, 715,436, Dreamcatcher.  No, I can't explain that.  "Even with a cast of names including Morgan Freeman, Damian Lewis and Jason Lee, the film dive-bombed at the American box office, although it did break even upon worldwide release."
• $57,469,467, Pet Sematary.
• $33,800,000, Carrie 1979
•  £61,276,872, Misery.
• $52,287,414, Stand By Me
• $92,913,171, Secret Window
• $44,017,374, The Shining
• $131,998,242, 1408.  This surprised me, since it's a film I really didn't think was very strong.  However,  it sure did make  strong showing at the box officer.
• $286,801,374, The Green Mile.

The full article is at skymovies.sky.com

AINT IT COOL Releases A Pile Of Retro Reviews

As usual with Aint It Cool News -- this is just pure fun.  Ambush Bug (Mark L. Miller) has decided to celebrate Joyland and Under The Dome TV series with a series of "glances back at some of the best and not so best works of Stephe King!"

Retro-review: THE SHINING (1980)
Retro-review: THE DEAD ZONE (1983)
Retro-review: CHILDREN OF THE CORN (1984)
Retro-review: MISERY (1990)
Retro-review: SLEEPWALKERS (1992)
Short Cuts Short Film Review: SURVIVOR TYPE (2012)
Book review: JOYLAND (2013)
UNDER THE DOME Episodes 1-2 (2013)
And finally…MUCH MORE SHINING! 
I admit that my favorite reviews are of the really bad movies!  Here are a few of my favorite lines:
About Children of the Corn, "For me, CHILDREN OF THE CORN is a prime example of why trying to expand a fifteen page short story into a feature-length film tends to be a bad idea."  YES!
And, more about Children of the Corn -- 

CHILDREN OF THE CORN is a movie that would be great for a “Mystery Science Theater 300”-style riffing session, from its awkward opening (overlaid with a voice-over narration supplied by Job—clearly added after test screenings, since Job’s narration only pops up once more early on in the film to helpfully describe details that the filmmakers obviously felt would confuse the audience) to the mind-blowingly awful special effects of the film’s climax.

About Sleepwalkers, Ambush Bug really held back, in my opinion, writing, "The story ends up being pretty simple." And, "One of the weirder King outings, this one boasted to be the first ever King story written directly for the screen and though it does carry with is a lot of King-isms, I can’t qualify this one as one of King’s strongest efforts."  Not one of King's strongest efforts?  Talk about understatement!  
About Under The Dome, "The first episode does everything right by introducing the overall conflict (the dome) and peppering in smaller conflicts as well. This is the type of storytelling that was perfected with LOST as the overall mystery is the thread that inches along for the season or two or six, while there seems to be some kind of plot movement by incorporating smaller arcs along the way. It’s TV serial storytelling 101 and hits all the beats nicely."

And with this note about Under  The Dome, I agree  wholeheartedly:

the overall mystery is intriguing and at this point, the dome could be anything from aliens to top secret government tech. Here’s hoping that the solution resolves itself better than LOST did (and isn’t as prolonged as that series ended up being), but as far as openers are concerned, it’s promising enough to have me interested.

Be sure to scroll all the way to the bottom of the article, there is some fun youtube  there!  
Check out at www.aintitcool.com

Star Pulse: Review Of Sleep Walkers

Good news. . . Sleep Walkers is out on Blu-ray.  Well, I'm not snapping up a copy, but I'm sure it's good news for someone out there.

I thoroughly enjoyed Jason Coleman's short review of the film at starpulse.com

It is safe to say that Coleman enthusiastically dislikes the movie.  I mean, he joyfully hates it!  This is actually a fun movie to poke at.  Honestly, where is MYST3K when we need them?  

King spends most of his story and Garris’s movie in the throws of skin-to-skin passion between mom Alice Krige and son Brian Krause and not so much with hot new girlfriend Madchen Amick. (What a waste!) Cheesy effects (the car changes model...and color!), sad story devices (Sleepwalkers are tormented by...cats!) and bad make-up work will leave most folks walking out, sleepy or not. 

My favorite scene is an obvious one: I like the Stephen King appearance.

I first saw this film in theaters.  Don't feel too sorry for me, my dad paid my way in. I was a teen, and he knew I liked Stephen King.  Unfortunately, he also went with me to see the show.  Awkward . . . watching a mom and son go at it as you sit next to your dad.

Like Cat's Eye, key parts of the plot were cut, leaving the audience unable to make necessary connections.  Anyway, rate this up there with movies I love to hate.  I think it's terrible, and am quite happy to see Mr. Coleman is on the same page.  Please, no one complain about how often I gripe about this movie, because I take such deep pleasure in criticizing it -- it's almost therapeutic 

However, if any of you want to put in a good word for Sleepwalkers. . . you'll be the first I'm aware of!  Go for it.

DREAD CENTRAL: Stephen King Films Head To Blu-Ray

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Remakes Worth Considering

It's an era of remakes.  Talk of remaking movies like Pet Sematary makes fans scratch their heads -- what was wrong with the original?  Same with Carrie; though I do whole-heartedly embrace the TV version.  Why did they remake Salem's Lot?  And please, please, please Hollywood -- stop giving us Children Of The Corn remakes, sequels or any other media.  The Children of the Corn is DOA by now! 

If someone wants to remake King films, I have a few suggestions! 

How about remaking Dolores Claiborne? The book was awesome; the movie stunk!  There's a simple reason for the movie's downfall -- they deeply changed King's story.  It worked the way it was written!  Told in Dolores' voice, she moved naturally from past to present.  The addition of her adult daughter was not helpful to the story's flow.

Needful Things was just disastrous!  And I went into it with high hopes.  I had fallen head over heels in love with the novel, buying each segment of the audio tapes with my 18th birthday money.  (They released it in three parts to make purchasing more bearable!)  I loved it all!  The women killing each other in the middle of the street; Radar; Polly and her arthritis; the Sheriff and his shadow puppets; Buster and his race horses; the boy who takes his own life; the woman in love with Elvis -- all of that was wonderful!

The real engine in the book was the Sheriff's past.  What happened to his wife?  The novel becomes his own war with the devil.  I had no idea King was writing about the 1980's and our desire to buy everything!  To me, it was just a big, awesome brilliant novel.

But the movie lost most of that.  Needful Things the movie started well, but failed to maintain the intensity that King's novel did.  Instead of ending with a fight with the devil, it concludes with a sermon.  This one needs a little room to breath.  I don't know why it was never optioned as a mini-series, but I think it would work nicely.  The plot drives it hard, even when King spends time focusing on characters.

Oh, how about Dreamcatcher ?  Again, loved the beginning -- but I always lose interest in the movie midway through.  Desperation falls in the same boat for me.  It started good, but I just can't stay connected.  I did like the novel, but something doesn't feel right on screen.

The Langoliers was bad from the start.  Awkward acting, bad spacial effects and way too much screen time makes the movie a big yawn.  In fact, it's laughably bad.
Firestarter was a big budget movie, big names and followed the book to the T.  But still, something was very empty in that movie.  I don't know what!  I just know that the film isn't as much fun as it ought to be.

IT deserves a remake.  I look forward to the upcoming movie, because I think that the mini-series dropped the ball in many areas.  Special effects were bad.  The only adult that really carried the movie was Tim Curry.  The kids were great, I mean absolutely fantastic.  But all of the adult scenes were embarrassing!

Oh, this one is good. . . The Running Man!  Now that was an awesome book!  It was not an awesome movie.  In fact, other than the title and the game show, I'm not really sure what the movie had in common with the book.

Some King films weren't good, but there's no point in remaking them because the source material never really warranted a feature film!  Take for instance, Silver Bullet.  It started out as a calender, turned into a novella.  It's a fun read, and I even like the movie a bit, but I do wonder if the book had been written by anyone else, would it have become a movie?  Same with The Lawnmower Man -- though that can of worms oughta be left unopened! 

There are some King movies that had no source material, since they were made for the screen.  While Storm Of The Century was a home run, I'm speechless at Sleepwalkers.  Just speechless.  Can only say, "Please, no remakes!"

Now, some movies I just wish they would remake parts of them.  The end of the Mist for instance!  Some fans loved it.  I know from his review that Lilja thought it was great, and King gave it his blessing.  But it leaves my heart throbbing every time I watch that thing.

Remake we really don't need: Carrie, The Stand (but I'll be the first in line) and Pet Sematary.  As the old man said, if it ain't broke. . .

I think when the movie adaptation is really good, it changes how you read the book!  You fall more in love with the book having seen it on film.  When a movie doesn't work, you think, "At least I still have the book."

Sleepwalkers: Glenn Shadix dies

Fangoria reports that 58 year old Glenn Shadix, who played Mr. Fallows in Stephen King's Sleepwalkers died at his home in Birmingham, AL. He is best remembered for his role in Beetlejuice as Ortho.'

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Fangoria offers this: The actor only had a couple of small roles on his résumé when Burton cast him in 1988’s BEETLEJUICE as Otho, the pretentious interior decorator who’s curious to a fault about the ghosts residing in his clients’ home. He later acted for Burton in PLANET OF THE APES and voiced the mayor in the animated THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. Shadix’s other credits include Michael Lehmann’s HEATHERS and MEET THE APPLEGATES, Mick Garris and Stephen King’s SLEEPWALKERS, Jeff Burton’s indie chiller ACTS OF DEATH, TV’s CARNIVÀLE and numerous animated series. He retired from acting four years ago and relocated to Birmingham, near where he was born, to be close to his family.

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http://www.fangoria.com/index.php?id=1951:rip-beetlejuice-actor-glenn-shadix&option=com_content&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=167

Sleepwalkers

One of the movies I bought in my recent frenzy of purchases from the perishing Hollywood Video was Sleepwalkers.

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"Star Wars Christmas Special" Kinda Bad!

Now, I saw this with my dad when it came out in 1992; the year I graduated High School. I hated it. I thought maybe I had misjudged. Maybe time has softened my opinion of this film. Maybe it was really a great film, and I was just missing it. Nope. How do I say this... kindly... (can't be said kindly)... This movie rises to the great heights of films like Superman 4, Even numbered Star Trek movies, and the famous Star Wars Christmas Special (youtube it, gang. You'll be happy you did).

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Directed by Mick Garris, Sleepwalkers cameo's Stephen King as a cemetery keeper and Clive Barker as a forensic tech. Once again, everyone in this film (like in Maximum Overdrive and Children of the Corn) has an IQ high enough to work fo BP. King appears with a toothpick sticking from his mouth; remember the Beav from Dreamcatcher, Mr King?

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This isn't "so bad it's good" type of work. This is the kind of stuff CIA uses on would be terrorist to make them talk. "Please, don't show me that again! I'll talk!"

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Creepshows author Stephen Jones quotes King as saying, "By the early 1990's I'd written several films based on my own published works. Some, like creepshow, were pretty good; others, like Silver Bullet, were...well...not so good. I decided to take what I'd learned and write an original screenplay, and I had a bloody good time doing it." p.76

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I don't know about you, but I liked Silver Bullet a lot more than Sleepwalkers. Some information seems to be missing -- like what in the world is going on! Mother and son are shape-shifting vampires, and apparently very in love. Mama Vampire is hungry, and sonny needs to find her a virgin bloodshake. Maybe they're not related, they might be lovers simply disguising themselves as mother/son. Ick, I don't want to think about it.

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HITCHCOCK Never Made A Vampire Film!

Another Hitchcock influence: Jones also notes in Creepshows that Mark Hamill (that would be Luke Skywalker in the real world) appears in the opening sequence, which is set in California's Bodega Bay. This, Jones notes, is a nod to Alfred Hitchcocks 1963 The Birds. But why a vampire movie would need to make a nod to the birds is a little beyond me. Like, maybe it's a warning from the beginning of the movie, "Run, faithful movie goers -- this one is for the birds!"

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Cat Lovers Movie

Sleepwalkers and cats don't seem to get along. Of course, not getting along with a cat a part of a normal persons life.

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Staci Wilson gives this so very exciting trivia tidbit: According to Sleepwalkers director Mick Garris, the lead cat who played Clovis was so relaxed on the set, he can be heard purring on several of the final takes. As a dog person, I'm all a flutter! I haven't been so excited since I listened to that Lights Out Everybody episode by Arch Oboler called: "Cat People." http://www.staciwilson.com/animalmovies/sleepwalkers.html

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What Others Are Saying:

So, I thought maybe I was wrong still. Maybe my bad experience with this film is just mine alone. I headed out into the murky world of Internet to find out what others think:

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One for Garris: According to always reliable wikipedia, the movie won the 1992 Fantafestival Award for Best Actress (Krige), Best Direction (Garris), Best Film (Garris) and Best Screenplay (King). Humm, I think this Fantafestival might also be calling baseball pitches these days -- http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/37479309/ns/sports-baseball/

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Two for Garris: On the S.K. message board, Anna writes, "When will you publish Sleepwalkers? I love this movie..."

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Three for Garris: Blogger Crackle loved this film. She says, "it will be hard to put into words the sheer brilliance of this movie.." but then she tries. Too bad. Mostly she notes themes such as incest, virginity and cats. I hate cats. Of course, I must admit that I stopped reading when she said, "Now for our last two themes, cats and incest (both subjects named in my recent divorce)." Okay, too much information! http://blog.crackle.com/2009/08/07/sleepwalkers-stephen-king-teaches-us-about-vampire-cats/

Movie reviewers.

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Fine, I get it. So fans love this movie. So I'll move on to the movie reviewers. After all, movie reviewers get paid to hate movies.

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Stephen Holden at NY Times wrote a basically straightforward summery of the movie, not commenting on its value. But, Andrew Bain responded to the Times, writing "Sleepwalkers has comedy value, there's no doubt about it. A friend and I acutally had to pause the film during several scenes in the film, just because we couldn't hear over our own laughter. In one such scene a girl jumps into a police car when she is attacked by the vampire-cat-aliens (no, I am not making this up) and screams for help down the radio. A policewoman on the line screams back 'Andy,' (the name of the recently deceased policeman) 'Get with the program! Bye!'.I truely hope that some of you will watch this film just so you can appreciate how terrible it is." So there. That's ONE for me. And it's a big one, since it's a person responding to someone who is important. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E0CE0DC123CF932A25757C0A964958260

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Variety said, "Stephen King's Sleepwalkers is an idiotic horror potboiler." http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117794958.html?categoryid=31&cs=1

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NOMINATED: MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000

I just realized something; it doesn't matter what they think. You are welcome to like this film -- be wrong, it won't hurt me a bit. I choose not to like this movie. So there. And, to rub it in, I respectfully nominate this movie to Mystery Science Theater 3,000. No, I won't take it back. Don't even ask. It's already nominated!

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picture: http://www.fanpop.com/spots/stephen-king/images/72839/title/sleepwalkers