Do you know if King sued over this?

  • This message board permanently closed on June 30th, 2020 at 4PM EDT and is no longer accepting new members.

Religiously_Unkind

Well-Known Member
Aug 19, 2017
444
2,264
32
There is a ripoff of his story The Monkey in a film called The Devil's Gift (later put together with another story and retitled Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders, watch the MST3k episode if you want to laugh until you can't breathe!) and he's not credited or anything. I wouldn't have sued if I were him, I would have thought the whole thing was hilarious.
 

Moderator

Ms. Mod
Administrator
Jul 10, 2006
52,243
157,324
Maine
There is a ripoff of his story The Monkey in a film called The Devil's Gift (later put together with another story and retitled Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders, watch the MST3k episode if you want to laugh until you can't breathe!) and he's not credited or anything. I wouldn't have sued if I were him, I would have thought the whole thing was hilarious.
No, this isn't one he sued anyone over.
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
87,651
358,754
62
Cambridge, Ohio
He sued to have his name removed from the advertisements for The Lawnmower Man as the story veered so far from his story that it wasn't even recognizable.
58585798632c7e4408949790b69b3a9b--lawn-mower-batman.jpg
 

carrie's younger brother

Well-Known Member
Mar 8, 2012
5,428
25,651
NJ
There is a ripoff of his story The Monkey in a film called The Devil's Gift (later put together with another story and retitled Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders, watch the MST3k episode if you want to laugh until you can't breathe!) and he's not credited or anything. I wouldn't have sued if I were him, I would have thought the whole thing was hilarious.
This is actually mentioned in the Wikipedia entry for this story, along with two other similar storylines.
The Monkey - Wikipedia
 

kingricefan

All-being, keeper of Space, Time & Dimension.
Jul 11, 2006
30,011
127,446
Spokane, WA
It was before my time so I'm not 100% sure of the reason. My guess is that it was for very similar reasons.
It was not known at the time when the film rights were bought that this was indeed a Stephen King book. It was sold as a 'Richard Bachman' novel, so the producers had no idea what they had on their hands. They would have had to pay much, much more for the film rights if it was known. It even states on my VHS tape from 1987 that it was based on the novel by Richard Bachman. Maybe Steve wanted to make sure that his real name wasn't linked to this tale in order to keep Dickie's name alive?