Warner Bros contemplating a prequel to The Shining

Stanley Kubrick’s version of THE SHINING may not be Stephen King’s cup of tea, but movie fans love the atmospheric and slow burn of a movie. I watch it every chance I get and it still freaks me out. It is a classic and one of the many parts of Kubrick’s varied canon.

Warner Bros. is smart enough to know that remaking a Kubrick movie is a bad idea, but a prequel, well that is another story. According to the LA Times, the studio is looking at a way to tell more stories at the Overlook Hotel.

According to the Times article, the film would focus on what happened before Jack Torrance (of course played memorably onscreen by Jack Nicholson), his wife and their psychic son arrived at the haunted retreat where Torrance soon descends into violent madness. A WB spokeswoman cautioned that any “Shining” prequel was in a very early stage and not even formally in development.

The article uses the words “quietly” and “exploring” because they must know that there is going to be a large population of movie fans that are not going to be too happy about this. But, by employing screenwriter/producers Laeta Kalogridis, Bradley Fischer and James Vanderbilt, they may be trying to do more than make a quick buck. Kalogridis wrote the screenplay for Martin Scorsese’s SHUTTER ISLAND and was an advisor on James Cameron’s AVATAR.

I am all for new interpretations of old material and as long as the filmmakers do not copy Kubrick’s film or use the words THE SHINING in the title, I would love to see what they come up with.

What do you think about a prequel to THE SHINING?