{"id":378471,"date":"2026-09-21T01:52:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T08:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/?p=378471"},"modified":"2026-09-30T09:34:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T16:34:06","slug":"doctor-sleep-and-the-shining-stephen-kings-better-duo-than-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/doctor-sleep-and-the-shining-stephen-kings-better-duo-than-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctor Sleep and The Shining: Stephen King’s better duo than IT"},"content":{"rendered":"

Doctor Sleep, Mike Flanagan\u2019s 2019 follow-up to The Shining, now looks like the stronger Stephen King sequel. Put next to Stanley Kubrick\u2019s 1980 film, it makes for a fuller, more satisfying two-movie franchise than Andy Muschietti\u2019s hugely successful IT films.<\/p>\n\n

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Flanagan had to do two things at once: keep Danny Torrance\u2019s story going and find a way to connect Stephen King\u2019s novel Doctor Sleep to Kubrick\u2019s 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<\/strong>. Critics responded well, and Stephen King said the movie made up for some of what had frustrated him about Kubrick\u2019s adaptation.<\/p>\n\n

That doesn\u2019t take anything away from 2017\u2019s IT: Chapter One, which really was a major horror event. Muschietti shifted King\u2019s It into the 1980s, turned Bill Skarsgard\u2019s Pennywise into a darker screen presence, and saw the film earn $704 million worldwide<\/strong> on a $35 million budget.<\/p>\n\n

Where things slipped was 2019\u2019s IT Chapter Two. Even with $473 million<\/strong> at the worldwide box office, Muschietti\u2019s sequel and its adult Losers\u2019 Club never matched the chemistry of the younger cast, and the movie ends up feeling baggier, less cohesive, and less emotionally satisfying.<\/p>\n\n

On box office alone, IT is still the bigger brand. Doctor Sleep made just over $72 million<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\n

If you\u2019re judging these adaptations by which story actually lands its ending, The Shining and Doctor Sleep<\/a><\/strong> are the pair to back. Welcome to Derry<\/a> is still on the way to HBO Max with Andy Muschietti as executive producer, and Mike Flanagan still stands as one of Stephen King\u2019s key screen interpreters, even without another Doctor Sleep sequel.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doctor Sleep, Mike Flanagan\u2019s 2019 follow-up to The Shining, now looks like the stronger Stephen King sequel. Put next to Stanley Kubrick\u2019s 1980 film, it makes for a fuller, more satisfying two-movie franchise than Andy Muschietti\u2019s hugely successful IT films. Flanagan had to do two things at once: keep Danny Torrance\u2019s story going and find … Continue reading “Doctor Sleep and The Shining: Stephen King’s better duo than IT”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9352,"featured_media":378470,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[6869],"class_list":["post-378471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","content-category-streaming-videos"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378471"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":378473,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378471\/revisions\/378473"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378471"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=378471"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=378471"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=378471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}