Doctor Sleep and The Shining: Stephen King’s better duo than IT

Doctor Sleep, Mike Flanagan’s 2019 follow-up to The Shining, now looks like the stronger Stephen King sequel. Put next to Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film, it makes for a fuller, more satisfying two-movie franchise than Andy Muschietti’s hugely successful IT films.

Flanagan had to do two things at once: keep Danny Torrance’s story going and find a way to connect Stephen King’s novel Doctor Sleep to Kubrick’s divisive 1980 take on The Shining. You can feel that balancing act paying off. The sequel reaches past nostalgia and gets into trauma, addiction, recovery, and sobriety. Critics responded well, and Stephen King said the movie made up for some of what had frustrated him about Kubrick’s adaptation.

That doesn’t take anything away from 2017’s IT: Chapter One, which really was a major horror event. Muschietti shifted King’s It into the 1980s, turned Bill Skarsgard’s Pennywise into a darker screen presence, and saw the film earn $704 million worldwide on a $35 million budget.

Where things slipped was 2019’s IT Chapter Two. Even with $473 million at the worldwide box office, Muschietti’s sequel and its adult Losers’ Club never matched the chemistry of the younger cast, and the movie ends up feeling baggier, less cohesive, and less emotionally satisfying.

On box office alone, IT is still the bigger brand. Doctor Sleep made just over $72 million worldwide against a reported $45 million to $55 million budget. Even so, it still drew generally positive reviews and picked up the same B+ CinemaScore as IT: Chapter One and IT Chapter Two.

If you’re judging these adaptations by which story actually lands its ending, The Shining and Doctor Sleep are the pair to back. Welcome to Derry is still on the way to HBO Max with Andy Muschietti as executive producer, and Mike Flanagan still stands as one of Stephen King’s key screen interpreters, even without another Doctor Sleep sequel.

Author: Emmanuel Pina

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