Stephen King Feels ‘Doctor Sleep’ Redeems All the Things He Didn’t Like About Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’

The most masterful thing about Mike Flanagan‘s Doctor Sleep is the way it seamlessly blends Stephen King‘s novel and Stanley Kubrick‘s adaptation of The Shining, working as both an adaptation of King’s Doctor Sleep and a sequel to Kubrick’s film. And you know Flanagan did a great job because even King, who famously hates Kubrick’s film, is happy with the end result.

In fact, speaking with Entertainment Weekly on the road to Doctor Sleep‘s release this weekend, King admitted that the film softened his long-standing stance on The Shining.

King explained to EW:

“I read the script very, very carefully and I said to myself – Everything that I ever disliked about the Kubrick version of The Shining is redeemed for me here.“

One of King’s main gripes with Kubrick’s film is the lack of a strong emotional connection to the central characters, which Flanagan manages to deliver in spades with Doctor Sleep.

For the same article, Flanagan recalled watching Doctor Sleep side-by-side with Stephen King for the first time. Flanagan told the site, “He was like, ‘Having watched this film it actually warms my feelings up towards the Kubrick film.’ That’s when I really kind of freaked out.”

King himself added, “[Flanagan] managed to take my novel of Doctor Sleep and somehow weld it seamlessly to the Kubrick version of The Shining, the movie. I liked it a lot.”