Ewan McGregoris checking into the Overlook Hotel. PerVariety, McGregor is set to star inDoctor Sleep, Warner Bros.’ adaptation Stephen King’s novel of the same name, the 2013 follow-up to his horror classicThe Shining. McGregor will play the adult version of Danny Torrence, the terrified tot plagued by psychic powers who you probably remember best for screaming ‘Redrum’ while he watched his father descend into a murderous rage.
OculusandOuija: Origin of EvilhelmerMike Flanaganis set to direct. The filmmaker previously tried his hand at King’s material withGerald’s Game, the critically acclaimed take on the King novel that was once considered unadaptable. Flanagan also rewrote the script froDoctor Sleep, originally penned byAkiva Goldsman.Stanley Kubrickdirected the 1980 adaptation of King’s original novel, which starredJack NicholsonandShelley Duvalland is revered as one of the best horror movies of all time (even though King himself famously wasn’t particularly fond of the adaptation).
Doctor Sleeppicks up with Danny decades after the events ofThe Shining, when he follows in his father’s footsteps of alcoholism and anger issues, blotting out his lingering trauma and his “shining” abilities with his drinking problems. But when he embraces sobriety, his psychic powers return and he uses his abilities to help dying patients in a hospice where he earns the nickname Dr. Sleep. That’s where he meets Abra Stone, a little girl with a spectacular gift who is being hunted by fellow psychics who want her essence.
Here’s the official book synopsis forDoctor Sleepvia the Publisher Page:
“Stephen King returns to the character and territory of one of his most popular novels ever,The Shining, in this instantly riveting novel about the now middle-aged Dan Torrance and the very special twelve-year-old girl he must save from a tribe of murderous paranormals.
On highways across America, a tribe of people called the True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless—mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky twelve-year-old Abra Stone learns, the True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the steam that children with the shining produce when they are slowly tortured to death.
Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel, where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant shining power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.”
Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of devoted readers ofThe Shiningand satisfy anyone new to this icon in the King canon.”
