Hey, I'm old. I should get a pass on that.Step away from the bottle, Marsha.Indeed, I forgot about the Golden Years gem myself!
Which film/tv adaptations were initiated by Stephen himself?
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Right there with ya, darlin', right there with ya.Hey, I'm old. I should get a pass on that.
Golden Years was an idea for a novel first:
Golden Years (miniseries) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I just find it hard to imagine he would write a long screenplay like Storm of the Century (for a series is even longer than a film obviously) without having some security or likely chance that it gets made. So I can only imagine he contacts people from the tv and film business first, telling them the idea and will only write it as a screenplay if it is accepted. Otherwise, what's the use? It would make more sense to do it as a novel if a producer or company doesn't pick it up.
Well, maybe at that point Steve was sick of people buying the rights to his books, filming them and screwing up HIS story? Maybe he wanted to do something different to cleanse his pallet? You do have a good point tho- Steve probably had contacted someone at ABC and said 'Hey, I got this idea for a miniseries, what do you think?'
He has his people get in touch with (their) people.
If it's an idea that is strong enough, he'll write it regardless of whether it's going to be adapted then or not. His short stories are not usually written for a particular publication--he writes the story, sends it to his literary agent and the agent shops it to publishers he thinks would be a good fit. The same goes for original movie scripts. That's not to say the agent may not go to a studio that's done productions in the past so you'll see several on the same network but it's not that they came to him to ask for another.
I think that apart from Kubrick's The Shining (and Brett Leonard's The Lawnmower Man, which he sued) he's mostly happy with the adaptations. Carrie, Tobe Hooper's Salem's Lot, Cronenberg's Dead Zone, Reiner's Stand by Me and Misery: how can you not like those? Cujo is even a favourite of him and he loves Dee Wallace in it. So I don't know if that was the reason. Of course not all of them turned out as good, but even a weaker one like, say, Firestarter is not a complete travesty - the story from the book is still there, it just isn't as good a film.
So he writes the original movie scripts without knowing beforehand they get made? But why does he do them as scripts in those cases and not as novels - that seems to imply that he wanted Storm of the Century, Golden Years, Sleepwalkers, Rose Red to be films rather than books.
He's willing to spend time on an original script regardless whether it gets made or not?
It's about the idea and in those cases it felt right to do them as screenplays. As I'd mentioned, he'd been working with Steven Spielberg on a haunted house idea but it didn't come to fruition so he took the idea he'd had and went with it on his own for Rose Red. It had always been a film project. It may surprise you, but there's no guarantee even at this point that something he's written will get published or made as a film but that's not what drives him to write. He writes it because that's what he does and if it gets published/filmed that's terrific but not the end game for him.
Said movie with Spielberg ended up being the original Poltergeist.
Not sure if you're serious.Said movie with Spielberg ended up being the original Poltergeist.
Yep, serious. I've read interviews with Steve that the two Stephen's worked on things back in the day but it never came thru. I looked thru my books about Steve but can't find it right now. I'm going to 'tag' Bev, he would know where that info is quickly, with me it will take days.
Bev Vincent
That wasn't Rose Red, though. They were working on that project after I'd started working here so couldn't have been Poltergeist.
Huh. Coulda sworn it was Poltergeist. Oh well. I'm gettin' old.........
Aren't we all, but sure beats the alternative!Huh. Coulda sworn it was Poltergeist. Oh well. I'm gettin' old.........
Ayuh!Aren't we all, but sure beats the alternative!
Huh. Coulda sworn it was Poltergeist. Oh well. I'm gettin' old.........
I understand the case of Rose Red, because there was already development going.
But while a theatrical or tv-film is often around 90 up to 120 minutes, a mini-series is much longer. You can write a filmscript knowing it will be in those time limits, but with a mini-series you will have to know how much time you have and how many episodes - to build in finales/cliffhangers on episodes for example. It can be 3 hours or 6 or other lengths.
When he writes Storm on the Century or Golden Years he can't do that without knowing how long it will be and how many episodes, because it will be useless if the tv company can't fit it in their programming. So, he must have some green light from the tv studios first to know how to construct the script, I can only assume. It appears to me they can only be written when he already has a deal with the tv studio/channel/network...