Ewan McGregor Says DOCTOR SLEEP Will Be (Almost) Completely Faithful to Stephen King’s Novel
Been a lot of news on the Doctor Sleep front lately (see here and here), and we've got one last tidbit of information for you before bringing this week in for a landing. In a new interview with USA Today, Ewan McGregor - who'll star in this Shining sequel as a now much-older (and far more alcoholic) Danny Torrance - says that Mike Flanagan's adaptation will be entirely faithful to Stephen King's novel ... almost.
Says McGregor (via CinemaBlend):
“I think he felt The Shining wasn’t a faithful adaptation of his book. Our script is faithful to his novel. But for one thing. And I’m not going to give anything away.”
Hm. That's interesting. We could speculate on what that "one thing" might be, but really: it could be anything. Maybe the film version has a different ending. Maybe instead of traveling around in a busted-ass caravan - as Doctor Sleep's villainous vampire elders did in King's novel - they'll travel around in a school bus. Maybe someone will have a different haircut. Maybe Jack Torrance won't appear at all, which will save the production from having to cast someone to fill Steven Weber's iconic shoes.
Really, there's just no telling!
Moving on, McGregor also says he's getting way into the role of Danny Torrance:
“I’m reading Stephen King’s novel every day and I’m really enjoying it. There are points where Stephen has written a bit, and I’m going, ‘Oh, that’s not right. I don’t think that’s quite [Danny]. Like, now I’m already thinking I know the character more than Stephen King.”
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's not get hysterical. The last time a Hollywood bigshot came along thinking he understood King's characters better than Stephen King, we ended up with Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. And look how that turned out.
Anyway, that's all on the Doctor Sleep front for now. Stay tuned for more on this one as it becomes available. Flanagan's film (which will also star Rebecca Ferguson, Carl Lumbly, and Alex Essoe) is tentatively scheduled to arrive on January 24th, 2020.
