The Running Man didn't too bad either, although again, a far cry from the original story in the book.

At one point in the 80's, I guess, King's movies were saturating the theaters. They started using his short stories as he was considered so bankable at the time. But eventually, the quality faltered and they started making moving from some if his stories that weren't really even that good. Then it came to a point where, I think, the movie going public began to realize that they probably weren't going to get their money's worth when seeing the latest King flick.

Another, and I think the main problem with turning his books into movies, was no one could really capture the vibe of the King novel and translate it well to screen. Actually, I don't think King's voice translates all too well to screen anyhow. Kubrick seems to have done it the best, but look at what he did. The movie is nothing like the book. That may be the trick. To get an original voice and give the novel a unique spin that may improve upon it for the theater.

Steve

Kings written voice is very special and as Steven said, is hard to capture... but the better film makers have managed it, even if it sometimes meant changing things from the novel.

Look at the filmed King and there are some genuinely great films, The Shining, The Dead Zone, The Shawshank Redemption, Misery, the TV movie of Salem's Lot, The Green Mile, The Mist, Stand By Me, Carrie.

That's ten without having to think too hard, and you can make a case for It, Cujo, Pet Semetary, Apt Pupil etc...

As Steven notes, the problem is that he was so successful that people started making films from any property they could get hold of and the only thing they cared about was the name Stephen King and making sure it was bigger than the films title or the stars on the movie's poster. That's why movies like The Lawnmower Man, The Mangler etc exist.

Thank good for all the good ones!

His latest book of short stories, The Bazaar Of Bad Dreams has some really good stuff.

Was going to add that Stephen King allows students to film his short stories for the princely sum of $1

http://stephenking.com/dollarbabies.php

Keep thinking I might try and find a student loooking to shoot something and then suggest this... be pretty cool to adapt King.

Anthony

I have looked into that. There are a few short stories available for this program. However, I think you have to be a student director or something and you can't make it longer than 2 minutes or so. You also cannot take it to festivals or use it in any way that makes you money. I haven't read the rules in a year or so, so I might get some of these things wrong, but it was clear it wasn't for me. Way to restrictive with what you can do with the final film.  

Quoted from stevie His latest book of short stories, The Bazaar Of Bad Dreams has some really good stuff.

I'm reading that one now. I LOVE it!!!  

I think I was like 16 years old when I read Pet Sematary, it was so gripping, I couldn't put it away and read through to the end until the next morning where I had to go to school. From then on, I read them all, well not the latest ones anymore, but anything he wrote up to 2000 or so. I found the movies were often very bad compared to the books, this is especially true for Pet Sematary but for others as well. I liked the movie version of 'The Stand' and '1408' is on of my all time favourite movies - in my opinion the best one they ever turned into film.