Stephen King’s Most Misunderstood Series Gets A Second Shot

The author of the 1977 novel The Shining has always been public with his disdain for the movie adaptation of his classic novel. Fortunately for Stephen King, he was in a position to do something about it. Enter the 1997 ABC three-night event, Stephen King’s The Shining available for the first time on Blu-ray thanks to Shout! Factory.

Stanley Kubrick’s version of The Shining is so iconic in the film world that it needs no introduction. Cinephiles can and will babble on for hours about the film’s technical achievements and shot composition if given the opportunity. Even the movie’s most ardent fans, however, will agree that as an adaptation of Stephen King’s original novel, Kubrick’s Shining kind of sucks.

Stephen King had never been shy about telling everyone who would listen about the issues he had with the original film. His main complaint was that Jack Nicholson started the film at an intensity level of 10, leaving him nowhere to go once he went mad. When King decided that he would like to make a new screen adaptation of his novel, Stanley Kubrick’s estate would only agree under one condition.He could no longer publicly badmouth Kubrick’s version of The Shining.

With tongue firmly clamped between teeth, King agreed and got to work on his own adaptation of The Shining. Getting ABC to produce the miniseries was easy thanks to the success of the previous miniseries adaptations of King’s work, like IT and The Tommyknockers. The network not only agreed to let King himself write the screenplay but to limit interference from Broadcast Standards and Practices as much as possible.

Finding the perfect actor to play Jack Torrance would prove to be much harder for King and his casting team. The author originally wanted either Tim Daly or Gary Sinese for the role. When those two actors proved to be unavailable, King threatened to “wait another 18 years” to make the adaptation until the perfect Jack Torrence could be found.Rebecca De Mornay, the actress cast for the role of Wendy Torrance, suggested that King try Stephen Webber, best known at the time for the sitcom Wings. The easygoing, laid-back Webber was just the anti-Nicholson King was looking for and the role of Jack was officially cast only four days before The Shining began filming.

The Shining miniseries was filmed at The Stanley Hotel in Colorado the real-life hotel that inspired the Overlook Hotel in the novel in 1996. The miniseries was directed by Mick Garris from Stephen King’s script. A special effects team led by Steve Johnson did their best to bring some of the more fantastical elements from the novel to the screen as another way to distance this version from the 1980 film. Ultimately, the miniseries was a ratings success, averaging roughly 17 million viewers each of the three nights it aired. Critics were overwhelmingly positive in their 1997 reviews of the miniseries. TV Guide gave The Shining 10/10, while other reviewers remarked on the miniseries’ “edge-of-your-seat creepiness” and “surprising emotional complexity.”

In the decades since The Shining miniseries aired, however, it’s been reevaluated as a somewhat cheesy failure. The best CGI that 1997 had to offer does not hold up in 2024, and some scenes, like when the firehose comes to life and attacks Danny, are laughably cringe when viewed today. It also doesn’t help that the miniseries was aired on network TV and had to be censored accordingly.As much as ABC allowed The Shining to push the broadcast standards envelope, at the end of the day, The Shining is an R-rated tale that suffers when made to fit in a PG box.But despite the dated effects and the neutered dialogue and gore, The Shining is definitely worth a watch, if only to see what a faithful adaptation of The Shining looks like compared to Kubrick’s film. Luckily, the miniseries is coming to Blu-ray for the first time on March 12, 2024, making it easy to snag a copy for comparison purposes. Copies can be pre-ordered right now on the Shout! Factory website.