Stephen King‘s THE SHINING is having quite the renaissance these days. The documentary on the Stanley Kubrick film, ROOM 237, was recently released and King himself penned a sequel to his novel, DOCTOR SLEEP, set for release later this year. Now we are getting news that Warner Bros. is planning a prequel film entitled THE OVERLOOK HOTEL.
Deadline reports that Glen Mazzara, the former showrunner on Starz’ CRASH and AMC’s THE WALKING DEAD, will write the screenplay for THE OVERLOOK HOTEL. The film will take the backstories of the ghosts and other supernatural events from the Stephen King novel and flesh them out to explore the nature of the titular building. While this sounds more like a potential series along the lines of A&E’s BATES MOTEL, it is being sold as a feature film.
As an avid fan of Stephen King as well as the Stanley Kubrick movie, I am greeting this with some ambivalence. Sure, I would love to see more about the hotel, but is Glen Mazzara really the guy for the job? I did enjoy his stint on THE WALKING DEAD, but he was kicked to the curb for some reason. Aside from that, CRASH was a god awful television series. Aside from those projects, Mazzara also worked as a writer on THE SHIELD and NASH BRIDGES. He has never previously written a feature film.
Part of me fears this project could end up looking like the weak Mick Garris miniseries version of THE SHINING which did feature more of the ghosts that inhabit the hotel. I love the potential for this project, just not who is involved.