Movies
‘The Shining’ Sequel, ‘Dr. Sleep,’ is “Goddamn Scary” — Yates Explains Why He Bailed on ‘The Stand’
With “Bag of Bones” premiering on A&E in December, “The Dark Tower” fighting for a cable deal, and an array of remakes in development, Stephen King is hotter than ever. The news continues today with a double-dose of King starting with another “Dr. Sleep” update.
According Lilja’s Library, on November 12th King announced that he was officially done with the second draft of “Dr. Sleep,” the literally sequel to “The Shining,” stating that “It’s a goddamn scary book.” The plot includes a traveling group of vampires called The Tribe. Get more on the project here.
In other news, Harry Potter director David Yates spoke with Collider as to why he passed on a fresh adaptation of King’s The Stand, which Warner Bros. eventually landed on Ben Afflek to get behind the camera. Get the skinny inside. “I was offered ‘The Stand.’ I love ‘The Stand,’ I read it when I was a kid, it was one of my favorite books when I was growing up, I love Stephen King, I think he’s a remarkable writer,” Yates told the site. “And coming out of ‘Potter,’ you wanna work with an author who has the same reach as a Jo Rowling, and frankly Stephen King does. My issues though were about the adaptation. I wanted to work with Steve Kloves, Steve Kloves wanted to work with me, we were both committed to doing it, but in that time it took to let go of ‘Potter’ and to think about how we would tackle the adaptation, we both decided that it wasn’t for us, so we left it. We sort of withdrew basically.”
What’s interesting is how Yates explains that the story doesn’t lend itself to the kind of “tentpole” feature Warners wanted.
“What I love about King’s work and what I love about ‘The Stand’ is the fact that Stephen King really puts you into these people’s lives, and you see the world from a very intimate human level, which normally is something I love. But we felt this pressure to make these super tentpole movies with this material, and the things that you get in ‘Potter’ — which are these extraordinary episodes of action — they didn’t exist in the material, and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to deliver the kind of movie that ultimately the studio was hoping to get from this material. I could see making a miniseries from it, a really interesting, intricate, layered, enjoyable long-burn of a miniseries, I could see that, but what was missing for me were the big movie moments in the material, the big set pieces.”
It’s disappointing that they passed on the project, but respectable that they wanted to do right by the source material. Does this mean Affleck is getting himself into an ultimate failure?
After pulling in $28 million at the worldwide box office this month, director (and star) Dev Patel’s critically acclaimed action-thriller Monkey Man is now available to watch at home.
You can rent Monkey Man for $19.99 or digitally purchase the film for $24.99!
Monkey Man is currently 88% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with Bloody Disgusting’s head critic Meagan Navarro awarding the film 4.5/5 stars in her review out of SXSW back in March.
Meagan raves, “While the violence onscreen is palpable and painful, it’s not just the exquisite fight choreography and thrilling action set pieces that set Monkey Man apart but also its political consciousness, unique narrative structure, and myth-making scale.”
“While Monkey Man pays tribute to all of the action genre’s greats, from the Indonesian action classics to Korean revenge cinema and even a John Wick joke or two, Dev Patel’s cultural spin and unique narrative structure leave behind all influences in the dust for new terrain,” Meagan’s review continues.
She adds, “Monkey Man presents Dev Patel as a new action hero, a tenacious underdog with a penetrating stare who bites, bludgeons, and stabs his way through bodies to gloriously bloody excess. More excitingly, the film introduces Patel as a strong visionary right out of the gate.”
Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, Monkey Man stars Patel as Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.
Monkey Man is produced by Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions.
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