I recently had a fortuitously Stephen King themed week. Firstly, I attended a mystery screening at the Savoy Cinema that turned out to be Edgar Wright’s film adaptation of King’s The Running Man (great movie by the way). That same week I’d finished reading Stephen King’s Carrie for the University of Nottingham’s Book Club Society. I then saw they were doing a screening of the 1976 Carrie movie starring Sissy Spacek at the Vue cinema over the weekend and so had great fun watching that with a group of book club friends. Rather than attempt to review these books/movies, I thought I’d use this blog to share something interesting I learned about Stephen King approach to movie rights.

Carrie has been adapted countless times over the past few decades. There was the Brian De Palma version I watched. Then a somewhat loose sequel entitled The Rage that released in 1999 following another young girl with telekinetic powers. This was followed by a Carrie television special released in 2002, a 2013 remake of the movie starring Chloë Grace Moretz and now the books reportedly being adapted into an 8 part Amazon tv series that will likely release at some point in 2026. Oh, there was also a musical version apparently.

I was initially somewhat confused as to why the book had received so many adaptions. It’s undoubtedly a compelling narrative, but having been told in numerous formats by this point I was curious to know why creatives were continually finding new ways to adapt the work. Anyway, it turns out Stephen King has a really interesting approach to selling adaptation rights. Apparently he likes to give talented newcomers at shot at adapting his work and is therefore relatively happy to license his work cheaply so long as he’s duly compensated if the project proves a financial success.

There’s an interesting Deadline interview in which he goes into far more detail about his history with movie adaptations but I thought this was really interesting and in some ways quite commendable. One could imagine an author of his stature not trusting his work with anyone beside incredibly seasoned directors so I think there’s something quite admirable in his willingness to allow new creative talents to prove themselves by adapting his stories.

Anyway, thats my thought for the day. I’m not done with work of Stephen King just yet as later this month I’ll be watching Shawshank Redemption at the cinema with some close friends for the first time. Here’s hoping I enjoy its as much as I loved The Long Walk or The Running Man.