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https://open.spotify.com/episode/5ooioA6i0CIH95I8g4Rm4M?si=7REIn1bJRoawRZ87Z9GcEw
In the Victorian tradition of telling spooky stories on Christmas Eve, I have a Victorian Ghost Story for everyone! A little bit of history, followed by the brilliant tale 'Room 13'.
Happy Holidays, whichever grab bag of them you follow, and I'll be back with more folklore in the New Year :)
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0WAPf20ap7jADCYb7sgNbt?si=Y1t2gH0jR9GDJiafiXLBPw
IT IS TIME. Slightly early festive treat as I talk Yule, spend a lot of time going over what a badass the gestalt legend of Santa is, then Christianity gets the better of me as a supposedly small section on King Herod just kept going.
Hello and Howdy Mr. Mike Flanagan! I'm excited to see you here on our humble hellsite. I have so much to say and ask about your netflix shows but for the moment, I want to ask about Doctor Sleep because I enjoyed that movie immensely - it filled me with a pleasant sense of dread, which possibly makes no sense, or a lot of sense.
What was that creative process like? Reconciling book and movie canons, following Kubrick's legacy, working with Ewan and Rebecca and Zahn and everyone else. I'm obsessed with King adaptations and I'm just fascinated with Doctor Sleep.
Alright! Buckle up for yet another long read.
Thank you for your question, and for this opportunity to go back and talk about DOCTOR SLEEP. It's a very special film to me, and a very special time in my life as well.
It all started with a general meeting with Jon Berg at Warner Bros.
The meeting itself started pretty wild - Adrien Brody walked out of the office as I was waiting to go in. Jon introduced us and we chatted for a few minutes, and I was a little out of whack for the rest of the meeting because I had a very potent "wow that was Adrien Brody" buzz going.
We were meant to talk about DC Comics and see if there was anything to do there. I was really hoping to chat about a horror-slanted Clayface movie, and about my favorite superhero: Superman.
Neither conversation went very far. I had just finished GERALD'S GAME, and Jon was a King fan, so he asked about the production. And then he asked if I'd ever read Warners' script for DOCTOR SLEEP.
I had. In fact, I had tried very hard to get a meeting at the studio when the book was first published. Warners owned the rights to DOCTOR SLEEP outright - it was part of their deal going all the way back to THE SHINING - so they immediately began looking into movie options when the book was published. Akiva Goldsman had written a script, and it was one of the first projects I asked about when I signed with WME as a client years before. "That isn't going anywhere," they told me. "I don't think that movie gets made."
They had tried to get me the meeting anyway, but no one at Warners responded. I never got in the room.
But now, here I was. What did I have to lose at this point?
"I did read it," I said. "I'd take a different approach." Jon sat back and smiled. "I love the book, Rose is one of the great villains of all time," he said. I agreed. He probed. "What's wrong with the script?"
"I don't think it follows the book closely enough."
"What would you do?"
"I'd do the book. Streamline it, combine some characters, and you'd have to rethink the True Knot a bit. But otherwise, just do the book. As long as it's a three-hander between Danny, Abra and Rose it'll work. With one big asterisk."
"What's that?"
"I think you have to bring back the hotel. Kubrick's hotel, I mean."
Jon smiled wider. "Yeah, it's a bummer the hotel burned down. King goes out of his way at the start of the book to emphasize that - no Overlook, look no further."
This was my biggest gripe with the book.
I said "When I read the book, all I could see was Kubrick's hotel. I think you do the book as close as you possibly can, until the big fight at the end. Instead of it taking place in an empty field, let it be in the hotel."
Jon: "Do you think King will be upset if you change his ending? You know how feels about THE SHINING, right?"
Me: "What if we gave him THAT ending? What if we let Danny have Jack's ending? Jack sacrificed himself to save his family and destroy the Overlook - why not let Danny do that? Change the ending, sure, but give him the ending Kubrick denied him."
We shook hands, and I called my producing partner Trevor Macy to tell him it was a good general, but nothing was coming out of my DC meeting. By the time I'd made it back to my car, though, Jon had reached out to Stephen King and asked if he'd be interested in me taking a swing at it. Steve, who had enjoyed GERALD'S GAME, said yes.
I was immediately petrified when the call came in that they might want to engage me on a rewrite of DOCTOR SLEEP, with a directorial attachment. I'd have to rewrite the script from scratch, and I kind of felt like they were calling my bluff. But the deal was made and quite suddenly I was adapting DOCTOR SLEEP.
First order of business was to make King aware of what I intended to do. I had just established a tentative relationship with my hero over GERALD'S GAME, and the last thing - the very last thing in the world I ever wanted - was to upset him. We weren't in direct communication, we spoke through agents and emails at this point - but I had to make him aware of the Overlook thing.
I put together a proposal that outlined what I wanted to do - use Kubrick's visual language, and keep the Overlook standing as a setting for the final battle. The initial feedback we got was "no." King really, really didn't like Kubrick's film, and his priority was to adapt DOCTOR SLEEP - not to revisit THE SHINING.
I told him that if he didn't want me to do it, I wouldn't - I'd walk away from the movie before I made something he hated. But as a last ditch effort, I said "imagine the Overlook, decrepit and rotten. And imagine Dan Torrance having walk in to 'wake it up,' the lights coming on above his head as he walks the halls. He finds his way to the Gold Room. To the familiar bar, where an empty glass is waiting for him. And we see a familiar bartender ready to pour for him, saying 'good evening Mister Torrance.' What if that bartender is his father?"
After a bit of a delay, King got back to us. "Do it," he said.
Writing the script was tough. I immediately felt like I had stepped into a very unsafe space. "This is going to piss everybody off," I figured. Kubrick fans would be livid that the movie was being made. King fans might be angry that Kubrick's imagery was being homaged. There was no way to please everyone, so I set about writing the movie I wanted to see most.
It was a slightly nauseous feeling that would stay with me until the movie came out.
I sat down to write with a hardcover copy of DOCTOR SLEEP to my right, and a hardcover copy of THE SHINING to my left. I read both cover to cover, sticking post-its throughout the pages with ideas, or flagging lines of dialogue (or even prose) that I wanted to protect. I managed to put together a basic outline for the movie, which was intimidating and sprawling.
I finally finished the draft and sent it off to Warner Bros. and King at the same time. I was shooting THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE at the time, and thought it would take a long while and a few more iterations before SLEEP would go anywhere, if it ever did.
Warner Bros. shocked us all by coming back with a green light. I've been told that it was one of the fastest green lights in the recent history of the studio, and I believe it.
It happened so fast, in fact, that Steve hadn't read the script yet. I got an email from him on a Friday saying "I read the first half, and I absolutely love it - my son's getting married, so I'll pick it up in a week or so and finish it, but great so far!" I was nauseous... because I knew everything that King was likely to hate was in the second half.
When he finally did finish reading it, about a week later, he reached out and said:
"I think it's really good. In my experience, this is the kind of script studios don't make, because it's TOO good. Hopefully I'm wrong. But no matter how it turns out, thanks for treating me so well. - Steve"
I had the distinct pleasure of being able to write him back and tell him that Warner Bros. had just greenlit the movie. And we were off to the races.
The pressure was enormous. They were spending a lot of money on this movie, and because of the insane box office success of IT: CHAPTER ONE, expectations were very high.
We were given access to Kubrick's blueprints for the Overlook hotel set, which were still held at Warner Bros. While we set about rebuilding the sets, our attention turned to casting.
For Dan, we met with a handful of actors: Dan Stevens, Chris Evans, Matt Smith, and Jeremy Renner all came in to chat about the movie. But Ewan McGregor, who himself was eight years sober (just like Dan), was the obvious choice. "Let's not talk about the Shining yet," he said. "I want to talk about recovery." He was the guy.
For Rose the Hat, we talked with several actresses, including Anne Hathaway, Nicole Kidman, and my dear friend Karen Gillan - but Rebecca Ferguson knocked our socks off on a 90-minute zoom meeting, and the part was hers.
Finding Abra Stone was more difficult - we auditioned more than 900 girls for the part. We'd narrowed it down to a half-dozen very promising and successful young actresses, including Lulu Wilson (who I'd worked with several times before and adore), but Kyliegh Curran's self-tape audition rose to the very top of the pile. Ewan flew to Atlanta to read with our final picks, and when Kyliegh - who lived 15 minutes from our office, was local casting, and had never booked a job before - finished reading, he turned to us and said "I mean it's her, right?" It absolutely was.
When we cast her, we invited her back to the office after school one day to get oriented. The crew was so excited for her that they decorated the production office in her honor.
As the rest of the cast fell in, we started doing our camera tests and getting excited about what we were putting together. My feeling over overwhelming nausea only got stronger.
We started shooting in September of 2018. The shoot was long, but never exhausting. The cast and crew were uniformly pleasant and happy to be there, and after the soul-crushing slog that had been THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, it was a relief to enjoy working again.
Kate was pregnant with our daughter Theo at the time. She visited as much as she could, but finally couldn't travel any more. Being away from Kate and our son Cody was hard, but I'm so grateful that we got to share some time on set together.
All things considered, this was a smooth shoot. But something happened for me while we were making it that would change the course of my life forever.
See, THE SHINING is about alcoholism. King wrote it while in the throes of his own addiction, and it is a novel about the anxiety he felt about what he could potentially do to his family if left unchecked. It's one of the reasons he was so upset with Kubrick's adaptation - all of that was taken away. This is a profoundly personal story for King.
When he wrote DOCTOR SLEEP, he was decades sober. The story of DOCTOR SLEEP is the story of recovery. This was something that Ewan knew very well, and why he was perfect for the part. He knew what the journey felt like. He wasn't alone - there were a number of cast and crew members on this shoot that were sober. In fact, just about all of the actors who played main characters were sober. I was still drinking at the time, though it had already become obviously problematic in my life, I hadn't taken any meaningful steps to change it.
This photograph was taken on 10/12/2018. This was taken on the day I got sober. I quit cold turkey, in the middle of production. I was clinging to vices at the time. Note not only the cigarette in my hand (I was smoking almost 2 packs a day), but the ash tray that had been rigged to the top of my viewfinder by the camera department. (I don't smoke anymore either, just about four years without cigs as well... and I still miss them.)
I had been writing about addiction for a decade. It was all over my work, going all the way back to ABSENTIA. I didn't realize just how much I was writing about myself, and I still can't believe it took me this long.
I vividly recall writing the scene between Dan and Jack at the bar. My wife pointed out to me after the fact that she could see it then, that something was changing in me when it came to drinking. Something was waking up, and I was processing a desperate need to sober up. That scene represents an internal conversation that is profoundly personal to me. It's still my favorite scene of the movie.
I've been sober now for over 4 years. DOCTOR SLEEP helped me finally make that decision. I finished the shoot sober, and came home to my life with a lot of uncertainty and insecurity. But with the unflinching support of my incredible wife, and some amazing friends, my life started to really blossom. It was pretty immediately evident that this was one of the best decisions I'll ever make.
Meanwhile, though, I had to finish DOCTOR SLEEP.
I LOVED the movie we'd made, but I was still terrified of what King would think of it - not to mention Kubrick's estate.
When we finished the cut, I flew to Bangor to screen the finished film for Steve. It was the first I'd meet him in person, and one of the most insanely exciting and humbling days of my life.
We watched the movie together, and I was acutely aware of each and every little reaction he had throughout.
(With Trevor Macy, my producing partner at Intrepid)
When the show as over, Steve turned to me and said "You did a beautiful job." And ultimately, he added that this film had made him warm up to the Kubrick movie as well.
A week later, we heard from Kubrick's estate that they had also loved the movie.
With King's blessing, and Kubrick's family, I felt that nausea finally subside. I said to Kate, "that's it. That's all that matters. Doesn't matter if the movie crashes and burns - we already won the important battle."
And then, the movie crashed and burned.
A group of us went to see it opening night at Arclight Hollywood (my favorite theater). We were just about the only people there. And I knew immediately that we were going to have a bad weekend.
The movie didn't perform very well. Warner Bros. was disappointed, and ended up scrapping the Dick Hallorann movie we were planning, as well as the Overlook Hotel prequel.
I was pretty crest-fallen. I'd spent years tossing and turning over whether audiences would be divided between the King and Kubrick camps. I'd been petrified that they'd be furious, venomous, run me out on a rail... I'd never considered that they'd be utterly disinterested. Apathy wasn't even on my radar.
Steve called me the Monday after opening weekend with some words of encouragement. "I remember when THE SHINING bombed," he said. "And SHAWSHANK. Give it some time. It'll find its audience. It's a really good movie."
That has turned out to be true. While it didn't set the world on fire theatrically, the movie has over-performed on VOD and streaming. And when Warner Bros. released the Directors Cut (I'm still so grateful that they did that), it popped even more.
So yes, to answer your question - the pressures were enormous. I hope this paints a little picture of what it was like. The biggest gift I got out of it, though, was sobriety.
I reached out to King a year later, on my first sober birthday. I hadn't told him I was sober, but it felt like time to do it. I got to thank him. "I never told you this, but I sobered up while we were shooting DOCTOR SLEEP, and I don't think I would have done it without your words. Living in that story, and marinading in the concepts of recovery and redemption made it possible. I just want to thank you."
He wrote back his congratulations, and then mentioned "as it happens, I'm off to celebrate 30 years myself. It only gets better and better."
And he is absolutely right.
DOCTOR SLEEP was the perfect project for me after the nightmare that was HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE. I fell in love with making movies again. And I found a new and wonderful gear for my life. It has only made everything better - my marriage, my work, my experience walking around on planet earth. I'm so grateful for it.
When I think of DOCTOR SLEEP, I think of Ewan sitting at the bar and looking at the glass in his hand. "Man takes a drink, drink takes a drink... and then the drink takes the man. Ain't it so, dad."
Ewan understood those words better than I did when I typed them into the script. I understand them much better now.
There isn't a day that goes by that I'm not profoundly grateful for my time at the Overlook. And for myriad of ways my life has been changed because of it.
yknow maybe we should let ryan reynolds stay - the guy has his likes and following hidden like a true tumblrina.
or we have him and neil gaiman duke it out for the coveted position of The Only celebrity allowed on tumblr, which is infinitely more entertaining.
Happy Halloween and/or Blessed Samhain!
Just a festive reminder I have a LukeLore podcast treat out for the season, with guest host Amon Mazingo from the Afro Tales podcast. You can hear it anywhere good podcasts live, or hop on over to: https://www.lukelore.com/listen
(a little late, I know, but it's my most recent podcast episode and I've only just logged back in to Tumblr)
Well, then, welcome back Tumblr. I may have to go on a bit of an updating spree around here O.o
Listen to Episode 52: Saying Goodbye to the Ghost With Two Backs (Listener Stories, Vol. 8) by The Ghost Story Guys Podcast #np on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/user-333794638/episode-52-saying-goodbye-to
The original theme was abandoned, which can only be a good thing really. Pretty sure if we'd run with it, it would be like reading from the Necronomicon...
Apocalypse averted by listener stories instead, there's also a musical contest at the end of this episode!
Listen to Episode 49: Crossing Over by The Ghost Story Guys Podcast #np on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/user-333794638/episode-49-crossing-over
I keep forgetting to share this one! The holiday downtime has me slacking :p
The Last Days: What is it? A mysterious affliction called The Panic kills anyone who goes outside. Society has continued after a fashion w
A post apocalypse film which surprised me with how good it was :)
23:59 What is it? A Singapore/Malaysia collaborative production which combines some interesting local folklore with the rarely used settin
I should really get back into the habit of sharing my own reviews :p
Happy Yule everyone!
We've all ducked Krampus, so now it's time to get on the presents and enjoy feasting with family :D
Listen to Episode 48: A Very Lovecraft Christmas by The Ghost Story Guys Podcast #np on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/user-333794638/episode-48-a-very-lovecraft
I normally don't share these until after I've listened to them myself, but I'm saving this for tonight and sharing it for others to do the same! :)
Listen to Episode 47: Taxi to the Other Side by The Ghost Story Guys Podcast #np on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/user-333794638/episode-47-taxi-to-the-other
This is a topic I've really been looking forwards to, and the pay off does not disappoint! Plus it starts off with the hilariously dark misdeeds of Brennan Storr.
Horror art by Stefan Koidl
chuck tingle, two time hugo award nominee and author of such erotica classics as ‘space raptor butt invasion’, ‘i’m gay for my living billionaire jet plane’, ‘bigfoot pirates haunt my balls’, and ‘there’s a bitcoin in my butt and he’s handsome’ just published a short story about the importance of consent and how it’s okay to have a loving relationship without sex if you want to???
that’s lovely on its own but it’s also called ‘not pounded in the butt by anything and that’s okay’, which is my favourite book title ever
God I really wish carrying stuffed animals around with you was socially acceptable
I don’t mean to take over a post, but I actually did a project on this for my sociology of deviance class in college!
I carried a large stuffed rabbit whenever I went in public for about a week to observe the reaction of others. The point of the project was to do something harmless yet unusual to see if the action would be considered deviant, in which case someone had to try to correct or shame the behavior.
Long story short, nobody tried to correct my behavior. I was asked about it casually, had a few lingering stares thrown my way and when I was with my boyfriend, shop employees would direct questions to him instead of me. However, nobody refused to assist me when I was alone in a store, nobody said anything about the rabbit besides “oh, thats a cute bunny!” and I attended college classes without even a teacher questioning it.
In conclusion, it is socially acceptable to carry a stuffed animal, its just not a societal norm. ^^
#for followers with a big anxiety or self hate problem #bring a friend with you (via @kingdom-for-muses)
DOING IT
My friend gave me a stuffed monkey plushy when I was struggling with uni, and I took him everywhere for like four years, usually velcrod to my backpack. No one said a damn thing, except my renaissance professor who saw it one day in the hallway and cracked the fuck up because I had a literal monkey on my back and he just looked at me like, “oh god, me too”. I used to leave him on desks during classes and exams (the monkey, not my prof). It was my reminder that someone cared if I was coping. But more than that it was soothing to have something to fidget with that wasn’t a pen. I used to ping those fucking things across the room I was so agitated. Harder to hurt people with a projectile stuffed monkey.
I got what I thought was a normal screen cleaning kit for my computer while I was in college. Much to my delight, instead of a little washcloth or whatever, the kit came with a tiny stuffed pig.
So I carried this pig in my backpack all through college, periodically taking it out, spraying my screen, and using the pig to wipe it off.
Now, I kept the pig in the side pocket of my bag where he was completely visible.
Then one day in screenwriting class I pulled him out to wipe my screen.
One of the guys sitting next to me looked appalled. “You’re wiping it off with your little stuffed animal??”
I explained what the pig was.
Turns out, the guy had noticed it and just thought it was adorable I carried a stuffed animal with me every day. He’d never mentioned it before.
Honestly, people do not care, and will not say anything. No matter the reason for your little stuffed animal friend.
And if you’re still really nervous about it keep a stuffed animal keychain on your bag. I have a cute little frog that stays on my backpack so when work gets stressful I can squeeze it.
For my anxious followers.
Listen to Episode 46: Who Ya Gonna Call? First Responders vs. the Paranormal by The Ghost Story Guys Podcast #np on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/user-333794638/episode-46-who-ya-gonna-call
A really interesting topic, a really cool musical guest, AND a contest for some awesome artwork stickers! Give us a listen when you get the chance, then repost tagging the show for a chance to win the stickers :)
