![](\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/39\/590x\/secondary\/5020445.jpg?r=1697664626754\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Here’s a great pub quiz question: which living author has had more of his stories adapted for TV and film than any other? The answer is Stephen King. Master of the macabre, this American writer has penned close to 70 novels and 200 short stories so far during his 50-year career, and well over 100 of them \u2013 including The Shining, Carrie, The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, Misery, Christine, It and Pet Sematary \u2013 have been adapted for the screen.<\/p>\n
Just his literary output \u2013 it\u2019s estimated more than 400 million copies of his books have been sold in English and translation \u2013 is enough to make him a household name. But when you factor in the most successful film adaptations, it\u2019s clear he\u2019s a global cultural phenomenon. It\u2019s these screen versions of King\u2019s stories Belgian documentary-maker Daphn\u00e9 Baiwir has focused on for her new film Stephen King on Screen.<\/p>\n
\u201cKing has been adapted for TV and film even more than Shakespeare. It\u2019s unbelievable,\u201d Baiwir tells the Daily Express. \u201cAnd the latest, The Boogeyman, was released just a couple of months ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
For her documentary, Baiwir didn\u2019t request an interview with King, preferring instead to give air time to the directors who have adapted his books.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy film\u2019s not about the Stephen King books, and it\u2019s not about Stephen King the man,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s all about King through the eyes of the filmmakers who adapted him. Having King in the documentary would have taken up all the space.\u201d<\/p>\n
By sheer chance, however, Baiwir and her crew bumped into the novelist while they were filming footage in his home town of Bangor, Maine, in New England.<\/p>\n
They merely exchanged a few friendly pleasantries and moved on.<\/p>\n
Some very famous filmmakers indeed, including Stanley Kubrick, Brian De Palma, David Cronenberg and John Carpenter, have been inspired by King\u2019s stories over the years. In her documentary, Baiwir encourages some of the lesser-known directors to analyse why the author\u2019s written word translates so expertly to the screen.<\/p>\n
\u201cStephen King writes human beings,\u201d says Taylor Hackford, who made a 1995 version of King\u2019s novel Dolores Claiborne. \u201cAnd then he puts them in pressured, difficult, sometimes phantasmagorical situations.\u201d<\/p>\n
READ MORE: <\/strong> John Grisham exclusive: The return of The Firm<\/strong><\/p>\n John Harrison, who directed the TV series of King\u2019s Creepshow, believes the author\u2019s original stories had such an impact that they revolutionised horror films altogether.<\/p>\n \u201cWe went through the 50s where we had great sci-fi horror movies that were all about \u2013 that\u2019s a great monster or that\u2019s a scary situation,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Steve came along in the 70s, it was all about how people were affected by what happened. He\u2019s changed horror and genre movie-making just by that alone.\u201d<\/p>\n The lion\u2019s share of King\u2019s stories are set in small towns in his home state of Maine, in the northeast of the United States, and filmmakers attribute his success to these very ordinary backdrops.\u201cHe loves common people, he loves folksy people, and he\u2019s got that dialogue down pat,\u201d says Fraser C. Heston, who adapted Needful Things in 1993. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t condescend to middle Americans. In many ways he is a man of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info<\/p>\n Harrison adds: \u201cInstead of setting everything in big cities, he chooses locations and environments that are identifiable for everybody. You could make Maine Pennsylvania. You could make Maine the countryside of France. You could make Maine a lot of different places because we all have places like that. Stephen King\u2019s identity is wrapped up in small town horror.\u201d<\/p>\n Mick Garris, who directed a 1997 TV mini-series of The Shining, sums up King\u2019s style very succinctly: \u201cIt\u2019s very kind of Norman Rockwell Americana,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s an idealised America but then it\u2019s ripped apart and sent to hell!\u201d<\/p>\n Another key aspect of many of King\u2019s most memorable stories is the claustrophobic environments. The Green Mile and Shawshank Redemption are set in prisons, for example. The Shining sees a family cut off by snow in a deserted mountain hotel.<\/p>\n Misery features a novelist kept hostage by one of his readers. While in Cujo, a mother and son hide in their broken down car from a rabid dog.<\/p>\n In The Mist, the characters are trapped inside a supermarket while predatory creatures stalk them. In 1408, an author finds himself locked inside a haunted hotel room.<\/p>\n Mikael Hafstrom was director of 1408. \u201cKing likes those contained situations where people are stuck in one specific arena,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like a theatre play and from these situations come a lot of challenging moments.\u201d<\/p>\n Born in 1947, in Portland, Maine, King was just two years old when his father, a vacuum cleaner salesman, abandoned the family, leaving his wife to bring up Stephen and his older brother David on her own, often struggling to pay the bills.<\/p>\n Critics have tried endlessly to pinpoint real-life incidents in King\u2019s early years which might explain his penchant for the macabre. The author\u2019s mother once told him that, at the age of four, he saw his childhood friend struck and killed by a train.<\/p>\n King himself claims he doesn\u2019t remember the accident although the plot of his 1982 novella The Body (adapted into the 1986 film Stand By Me) suggests it figures strongly in his imagination.<\/p>\n In the early 1970s, by now married to Tabitha and working as a schoolteacher, King completed his debut novel, Carrie, about a naive teenage girl with powers of telekinesis.<\/p>\n Initially, he was disillusioned by the book, and decided to throw it away.<\/p>\n Fortunately, Tabitha saw its potential, pulled it from the garbage, and it was published in 1974. After the film \u2013 starring a young Sissy Spacek and John Travolta \u2013 was released two years later, King quickly became recognised as a major force in horror fiction.<\/p>\n \u2019Salem\u2019s Lot, The Shining and The Stand followed close behind as King established a phenomenal work rate. Despite addictions to alcohol and cocaine \u2013 he\u2019s been sober since the late 1980s \u2013 he continued to work at a meteoric rate, often producing up to three novels a year.<\/p>\n Critics and awards committees within the genres of sci-fi, fantasy and horror showered him with praise and prizes.<\/p>\n But he always struggled \u2013 and still does \u2013 to achieve recognition among mainstream literary circles.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s something I\u2019ve never understood, really,\u201d says Baiwir who feels there\u2019s huge snobbery at play when it comes to writers such as King who choose non-conventional genres. \u201cWhen you read great horror novels, there are so many layers to the story. But, still, a lot of people are demeaning towards the genre; even in films too.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1999, while walking along a road in Maine, King suffered a horrific experience that sounds just like the plot of one of his novels. He was struck and nearly killed by a minivan, suffering injuries that included a collapsed lung, a broken hip and ribs, and multiple fractures in his right leg.<\/p>\n Don’t miss… <\/strong> Later, after the driver received a suspended jail sentence for dangerous driving, King purchased the minivan from him with the intention, he said, of exacting revenge by smashing it up with a sledgehammer. And, perhaps, to stop a fan buying it.<\/p>\n Reportedly, King purchased the van from its driver, Bryan Smith, for $1,500 but it\u2019s unclear whether he ever went through with his threat of destroying it.<\/p>\n Not that the accident dampened King\u2019s work ethic.<\/p>\n Over the next two decades he wrote dozens more works \u2013 and the screen adaptations continued apace. One could even argue there\u2019s been an overkill of adaptations.<\/p>\n Some stories, such as Carrie, Pet Sematary, Firestarter, Children of the Corn, The Stand and Christine have now been reworked for a second time.<\/p>\n King himself, famously disenchanted by Kubrick\u2019s 1980 film version of The Shining, produced a TV mini-series of the same novel with a very different sentiment.<\/p>\n Baiwir has been surprised at some of the screen versions.<\/p>\n King\u2019s 1992 novel Gerald\u2019s Game, for example, is the tale of a woman trapped in a secluded country house. Set entirely in one room, on paper it feels like it would make for a dull film. Yet the resulting adaptation, directed by Mike Flanagan, was praised by critics. King himself called it \u201chypnotic, horrifying and terrific\u201d.<\/p>\n Another Flanagan adaptation, currently in production, is King\u2019s epic fantasy series, The Dark Tower. \u201cIt\u2019s so difficult to adapt because it\u2019s a huge work,\u201d says Baiwir. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit like Tolkein\u2019s Lord of the Rings. But since its Mike Flanagan who\u2019s doing it, I think it will be great.\u201d<\/p>\n Shooting on the series was paused during the Hollywood actors\u2019 and writers\u2019 strike and is now up and running again.<\/p>\n After The Dark Tower, you\u2019d think there couldn\u2019t be many King stories left to adapt. You\u2019d be wrong, though. A score of his novels \u2013 including Rage, Eyes of the Dragon, Insomnia, Duma Key and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon \u2013 plus dozens of his short stories, have yet to receive the screen treatment. But for how long?<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/39\/590x\/secondary\/5020447.jpg?r=1697664626817\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/39\/590x\/secondary\/5020455.jpg?r=1697664626876\")
<\/p>\n
Amazon offers one million books for FREE and ultimate Kindle to read them[TECH] <\/strong>
Own a Kindle? Read one million books for FREE from Amazon[TECH] <\/strong>
From Sherlock Holmes to Luther and Cormoran Strike, London is an ideal settin…[BOOKS] <\/strong><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/39\/590x\/secondary\/5020458.jpg?r=1697664626931\")
<\/p>\n