Author Stephen King is one of the highest-selling and one of the most popular fiction writers in the world. He is known for his extensive work in the horror genre. One of his most famous horror novels is The Shining, which became even more well-known after Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation.
King famously disregarded the film adaptation as it had deviated quite a bit from the novel. He has mentioned many reasons for his dislike of the film, and one of his biggest criticisms was the casting of Jack Nicholson. King reportedly felt that Nicholson looked too deranged and that the audience would get to know early that the character would go mad.
Stephen King Hated Stanley Kubrick’s Adaptation Of The Shining
Directed Stanley Kubrick apparently chose to make The Shining after his previous film Bary Lyndon did not do well at the box office. He reportedly asked his assistants to bring him a pile of horror novels for him to adapt and would loudly throw them at the wall after being unimpressed by the first few pages. When his secretary noticed that there had been no noise yet, she found him reading Stephen King’s novel.
Kubrick’s film is often listed among the greatest horror films of all time and has become an irreplaceable part of pop culture. However, Stephen King was reportedly unimpressed with the film and has on many occasions disregarded it as a bad adaptation. King had major criticism about the portrayal of the lead characters in the film.
King has mentioned that it was the first film adaptation of his that he remembered hating and that he did not have artistic control over the development. He spoke about his opinion in The Drew Barrymore Show,
“Well, I didn’t really like the movie that much, but I did like the little boy that played Danny Torrance…The book was warm and the movie was cold. It was a Kubrick film and don’t get me wrong, I love everything else the man did. I just didn’t like that one. The greatest thing about it is if you’re not involved, if it’s really good, you can say that’s based on my book. If it’s really bad, you can say, I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
The author also reportedly had a huge issue with the casting of Jack Nicholson in the film.
Why Did Stephen King Hate Jack Nicholson’s Casting In The Film?
One of the biggest changes that Stanley Kubrick made in the film was to never explicitly state that the Overlook Hotel was haunted, and instead implied that the horror was more psychological. The casting of Jack Nicholson, who played Jack Torrance, made it even more obvious that the character is psychotic from the beginning.
This was precisely one of the reasons why Stephen King did not like the casting of Nicholson in The Shining. King mentioned that Torrance’s eventual descent into madness was a tragedy and that was the arc that was missing in the film. The writer spoke to Deadline about the film,
“When we first see Jack Nicholson, he’s in the office of Mr. Ullman, the manager of the hotel, and you know, then, he’s crazy as a shit house rat. All he does is get crazier. In the book, he’s a guy who’s struggling with his sanity and finally loses it. To me, that’s a tragedy. In the movie, there’s no tragedy because there’s no real change.”
Hence, the writer felt that an actor who would look normal would not make the character’s madness apparent. King reportedly suggested actors such as Michael Moriarty, Jon Voight, and Martin Sheen for the role. But, Stanley Kubrick chose Jack Nicholson at the end.
