I love Stephen King's work...but I have a problem with it. Well not exactly with his 'work' but what's done with it.
For starters there's a lot of it and what this means is that some of it just isn't going to be as good as others. There is of course nothing wrong with that! Stephen's had some pretty amazing novels in his time and it'd be near impossible to have the same level of success with each piece of work.
His work is well known for being adapted to make films, take The Shining for example, what an amazing book and film! But the problem I have is that the success of some of these novel turned films has meant the flood gates have literally opened and now there is a seemingly endless amount of some truly awful films with King's name attached to them.
The problem I have is that because of his success and the fact that he has a lot of work, film producers are incredibly willing to push out any novel he writes and turn it into a film. Now there is a pool of content that ranges from exceptional to incredibly lacklustre and King doesn't seem particularly fussed about it.
All you have to do is search online for 'worst Stephen King films' and you'll immediately be met by articles announcing 'the 25 worst films'. This isn't to blame Stephen in any way, any film adaption will sometimes struggle to find the heart of the book and try and translate it into film. We're used to seeing book to film adaptions and there will always be a core group who aren't satisfied with what has been done with the source material.
It is always going to be difficult to translate a long book into one film and that's why we're seeing more and more film studios opt for a series of films instead of one particularly long one (and to make more money of course).
So I guess I just wish that Stephen would either be a lot more cautious with his content and make sure he's allowing the right people to do the job or just be confident in knowing the book is great and a poor quality film doesn't always have to be made!
