Uh-oh. It looks like someone's been impressed by what A&E have done with Bates Motel, the TV prequel to Psycho. Warner Bros are apparently very keen to make a prequel to their own classic movie, The Shining. It's early days, but producers Laeta Kalogridis (Shutter Island), James Vanderbilt (Zodiac) and Bradley Fischer (Shutter Island, Zodiac) are apparently in talks with Glen Mazzara (The Walking Dead) to write The Overlook Hotel.It all sounds very worrying to me. I'm not even very keen on Stephen King writing an unnecessary sequel to The Shining, entitled Doctor Sleep. If they're going to cash-in on The Shining name, why not just make King's own sequel into a movie?
As a massive fan of Stanley Kubrick's 1980 horror (it's my favourite movie), the idea of a prequel sounds ludicrous. I don't see any other option available to the makers of The Overlook Hotel, beyond doing a "haunted hotel" 1920s drama (the era of the people who were haunting Jack Nicholson's character). I understand some things have a pop-culture cachet that helps sell them (and you need all the help you can get in today's crowded marketplace), but you risk tarnishing a legendary movie by proxy with this. Oh well.
To be positive, the listed producers are behind some good movies and Mazzara's a decent choice to write something like this, so maybe something good will come of it.
