In a recent interview with Collider, Truth director James Vanderbilt spoke about the upcoming prequel to The Shining, which he will be producing. The film, which is currently titled Overlook Hotel, will be directed by Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo) and scribed by Glen Mazzara (“The Walking Dead”).
Based on Stephen King’s original prologue to The Shining, which was cut from the book prior to publication in 1977, “…the film will tell the origin story of the Overlook Hotel through the eyes of its first owner, Bob T. Watson. A robber baron at the turn of the 20th century, Watson scaled the remote peaks of the Colorado Rockies to build the grandest resort in America, and a place he and his family would also call home.”
Vanderbilt explained, “You want a real filmmaker like Mark doing it… Honestly I think people will really be excited about it, because it’s not like ’20 Years Before The Shining!’.” He continues, stating, “I don’t want to give too much away about the story but the way Glen cracked it and the way Mark has sort of cracked it, it’s completely its own film, which I think is super smart. It’s not like, ‘When Scatman Crothers was young, he…’ it’s not that.”
So, while Vanderbilt seems to have a strong amount of confidence in the team behind this prequel, there is still no information yet to go by which can give us even remotely that same sense of trust. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!
The original Stanley Kubrick film came out in 1980 and was based off of the Stephen King novel of the same name, although King infamously dislikes the adaptation.
