Tiny Doctor Sleep Detail Makes Flanagan The Perfect Stephen King Director

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One very minor detail in Doctor Sleep proves that Mike Flanagan is the perfect director for Stephen King adaptations due to creative parallels between the director and the author. One of Stephen King's most famous stories, The Shining, was given a sequel in the form of Doctor Sleep, a story that sees an adult version of Dan Torrance confront his past and his abilities in order to protect a child with similar powers. The film adaptation of Doctor Sleep was released in 2019, directed by Mike Flanagan.

Though it adapted King's novel of the same name, Doctor Sleep also acted as a sequel to the better-known Kubrick version of The Shining (an adaptation which Stephen King hates). This created a barrier to securing King's approval of the project, but Flanagan's previous projects, including another Stephen King adaptation, Gerald's Game, helped assuage King's apprehension. As Flanagan has proven himself to be one of the most promising horror storytellers working with visual media, his compatibility with King's work seems to be a natural fit.

Related: Doctor Sleep: How & Why Danny's Death Ruined His Ending

There is actually one small detail in Doctor Sleep that makes the combination of Flanagan and King even better, though. The film is largely faithful to the source material, but Flanagan was forced to make some changes. One such change regards an early Doctor Sleep scene in which Andi visits a movie theater. In the book, she's watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, but the film changes this to Casablanca. This secretly makes Mike Flanagan the perfect Stephen King director, as it combines a generally faithful adaptation of the author's work with a small nod to an old movie, something that King himself litters his work with. The pair's