Adapting Stephen King: Volume 2, Night Shift from Short Stories to Screenplays

by Joseph Maddrey

Overview

Stephen King's fiction has formed the basis of more motion picture adaptations than any other living author. His earliest short stories, collected in the Night Shift anthology, have been adapted into hit features including Creepshow, Children of the Corn, Cat's Eye, Maximum Overdrive, Graveyard Shift, Sometimes They Come Back, and The Mangler. Through his "Dollar Baby" program, King licensed several Night Shift stories to aspiring filmmakers for just one dollar each, resulting in numerous student film adaptations.

This book critically examines and contextualizes adaptations of the Night Shift short stories, from big box office features to relatively unknown student films. It illuminates how each film is a uniquely and intricately collaborative endeavor, and charts the development of each adaptation from first option to final cut. Through old and new interviews with the creators, the work explores how filmmakers continue to reinvent, reimagine, remake and reboot King's stories.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476690100
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Publication date:	12/20/2022
Pages:	228
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.46(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Joseph Maddrey has researched, written and produced more than 100 hours of documentary television, focusing on true crime and the paranormal. He lives in Midlothian, Virginia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Series Preface 1

A Note on Style 5

Introduction 7

Origin Stories 7

Cinematic Brand Stephen King 12

Part 1 From Night Shift to Creepshow 17

Night Shift (1978 treatment) 17

The Milton Subotsky Story 21

Creepshow (1979 screenplay) 26

Part 2 Early "Dollar Babies" 34

The Boogeyman (1982 short film) 34

An Interview with Jeffrey C. Schiro (2020) 38

The Woman in the Room (1983 short film) 44

Disciples of the Crow (1983 short film) 48

An Interview with John R. Woodward (2020) 50

Part 3 Children of the Corn 54

Development Hell (Oral History) 54

Children of the Corn (Undated Second Draft) 55

Children of the Corn (Revised: 6/80) 60

Development Hell (Oral History) 62

George Goldsmith's Children of the Corn (Second Revision 8/5/83) 64

Reflections on the Film (Oral History) 69

An Interview with George Goldsmith (2020) 70

Legacy (Sequels, Sequels, Sequels) 78

Donald P. Borchers' Children of the Corn (2009) 82

An Interview with Donald P. Borchers (2020) 86

Reset 95

Part 4 From Cat's Eye to Sometimes They Come Back 98

Development Hell (Oral History) 98

Cat's Eye (May 14, 1984, screenplay) 99

The Machines / Beware The Green God 103

Development Hell (Oral History) 107

Trucks / Overdrive / Maximum Overdrive 109

Reflections on the Film (Oral History) 115

Brian Taggert's Trucks (1997) 116

Sometimes They Come Back (First Draff, c. 1987) 119

Sometimes They Come Back (Fourth Draft-August 31, 1990) 123

An Interview with Tom McLoughlin (2011) 128

Legacy (… Again… for More…) 135

Part 5 From Graveyard Shift to the Mangler 137

Development Hell (Oral History) 137

Graveyard Shift (First Draft-March 30, 1986) 138

Development Hell (Oral History) 142

Graveyard Shift (Second Draft-April 30, 1990) 144

Reflections on the Film (Oral History) 146

An Interview with John Esposito (2021) 148

The Lawnmower Man Lawsuit 161

Development Hell (Oral History) 163

The Mangler (Rewrite-June 9, 1993) 165

The Mangler (June 17, 1993, Final Draft) 169

Reflections on the Film (Oral History) 171

An Interview with Stephen David Brooks (2021) 172

Reborn? 182

Part 6 21st-century Adaptations 184

Nightmares & Dreamscapes: "Battleground" (2006) 184

An Interview with Richard Christian Matheson (2021) 188

Creepshow: "Gray Matter" (2020) 195

An Interview with Philip de Blasi and Byron Willinger (2021) 199

Chapelwaite (2021) 206

Endless Night 211

Bibliography 213

Index 219