Friday, July 18, 2014

THE SHINING Prequel THE OVERLOOK HOTEL Trudges Onward...

Header courtesy of NabundaNada @ DeviantArt
As a horror fan, it's hard to report news like this without any bias. You guys know my stance on The Shining, and the place that it holds in my personal life, and as happy as I am to know that this isn't a remake I am still a bit uncertain about the news that The Overlook Hotel, a prequel to Kubrick's masterpiece, is in the works and has secured a director. 

I think that out of all the remakes/reboots/what-have-you that the horror world has seen in the past decade, this will draw some of the heaviest speculation simply because Kubrick's work is regarded as some of the best in the film world, not only the horror world. 

Rumors of this project began circulating sometime ago and it appears that they were more than just rumors. Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo) has laid claim to the directors chair with a draft written by Greg Mazzara (The Walking Dead). James Vanderbilt (The Amazing Spider Man), Brad Fischer (Zodiac) and Laeta Kalogridis (Shutter Island) will be producing. In May, Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity) was heavily rumored to have first rights in terms of directing the flick, and in all honesty, I would be much more interested in he were the one helming the project. His use of atmosphere in Gravity was mesmorizing, and while Romanek's One Hour Photo was plenty chilling, that film came out twelve years ago. That's a pretty big gap between major productions, minus the slew of music videos he's directed over the years. 

King's original prologue (which was later cut before the book went to print in '77) stands as the basis for the film, which "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“.

For now, as always, we wait and we see what's going to come of this new project.  No word has come of yet as to whether or not King will be involved, but seeing as this is one of the novels that hit's closest to home for him, I can't imagine that he won't. Hopefully Romanek won't Kubrick him and effectively shut him out of production on this one, as my hope for this project lies in whether or not King is involved. 

Either way, speculation is fun and there is going to be a ton of that going on until we get more details. Will they recreate the same look for the Overlook? Will they use the original source material and film at the Stanley, as King's mid-90's mini-series did, in Estes Park? Will we see Dan Lloyd return for a cameo in this installment? And what about getting backstory from the original? Will we see the massacre of the Grady twins, or the demise of the woman in room 217 (although it will probably remain 237 for continuity's sake)? 

What do you all think? Are you ready for another jaunt in the halls of the Overlook? 

No comments:

Post a Comment