Warner Bros. schedules The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep & The Witches remake

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Warner Bros. has shuffled their release schedule a bit, announcing dates for a handful of movies last night, and a couple of movies mentioned in their announcement are of particular interest to us here at Arrow in the Head.

First up is director Mike Flanagan's DOCTOR SLEEP, an adaptation of Stephen King's sequel to his classic story THE SHINING. DOCTOR SLEEP has been heading for a January 24, 2020 release, which makes sense because 2020 will mark the 40th anniversary of Stanley Kubrick's version of THE SHINING. But why worry about celebrating anniversaries when we can get the new movie even sooner? Warner Bros. has moved the release of DOCTOR SLEEP, which is currently in post-production, up to November 9, 2019.

King's novel had the following synopsis: 

On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless—mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and tween Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the “steam” that children with the “shining” produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant “shining” power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.”

Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of hyper-devoted readers of The Shining and wildly satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon.

The film stars Ewan McGregor, Kyleigh Curran, Carl Lumbly, Alex Essoe, Bruce Greenwood, Rebecca Ferguson, Jacob Tremblay, Jocelin Donahue, and Zach McClarnon.

The other release date announcement that caught our attention concerns Robert Zemeckis's adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel THE WITCHES, which just cast Anne Hathaway in the role of the main witch. THE WITCHES was previously brought to the screen by Nicolas Roeg in 1990, and Roeg's film (pictured above) had this synopsis: 

While staying at a hotel in England with his grandmother, Helga, young Luke inadvertently spies on a convention of witches. The Grand High Witch reveals a plan to turn all children into mice through a magical formula. When they find that Luke has overheard, the witches test the formula on him. Now, with the help of Helga and the hotel manager, Mr. Stringer, Luke the mouse must fight back against the witches.

Zemeckis's take on the material moves the story to the Gothic South in the 1960s.

Produced by Guillermo Del Toro and Alfonso Cuaron, THE WITCHES is now set to reach theatres on October 16, 2020. Just in time for Halloween.