Snapshot: Stephen King
By Joel West
April 9, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
A King's reign at the box office enters a Dark period...
In my 30 years of existence, the name most commonly attributed to horror is Stephen King. I have no idea what the print and film mediums are like without King's name in the mix. The man simply owns horror. Certainly much can be made about his recent work and how it seems he is now ribbing himself, but imitation is the best form of flattery (even if it is himself). In fact, when he "retired" from writing in 2002, King himself stated that he has said everything he set out to say.
Regardless, the man's novels have been adapted into countless films. Starting way back in 1976, Brian DePalma brought King's Carrie to the silver screen and made a strong $33 million. Four years later, the legendary Stanley Kubrick adapted (loosely, very loosely) The Shining ($44 million) and rightfully joined Carrie among the greatest modern horror films. In the early 1980s, Cujo ($21 million), The Dead Zone ($20 Million), and Christine ($21 million) made solid bank (considering the era) despite paling in comparison to the quality of Carrie and The Shining.
From 1984 to 1986, no fewer than six (!) of King's stories were turned into films. Unfortunately, over-saturation of poor adaptations led to King fatigue at the box office (Children of the Corn - $14 million, Firestarter - $17 million, Cat's Eye - $13 million, Silver Bullet - $12 million, and Maximum Overdrive - $7 million). Luckily, Stand by Me ($52 million) was the last of the glut and audiences responded favorably to something refreshingly different from King's vault (it didn't hurt that director Rob Reiner actually made it good).
Suddenly King was relevant again and his non-horror stories (The Running Man - $38 million, Misery - $61 million) started making the successful transition to the big screen. This is not to say that King's horror tales stopped being adapted as Pet Semetary ($57 million), The Lawnmower Man ($32 million, although King removed his name from the loose adaptation), and Sleepwalkers ($30 million, I know, it wasn't a novel) proved King was a money making machine from the late '80s through the early '90s. Although this column discusses movie box office, it is worth mentioning King dominated the TV miniseries as well (Salem's Lot, It, The Tommyknockers, and The Stand to name a few).
For the 1993 film adaptation of King's successful novel The Dark Half, some very prestigious talent became attached. Oscar winner Timothy Hutton was set to star and the legendary George A. Romero would be at the helm. Certainly Romero and Hutton were not in their respective primes, but there was no denying the talent these two possessed when they brought their A game. Romero himself was no stranger to King's material as he already directed the underrated Creepshow ($21 million) and the better left forgotten Monkey Shines ($5 million). Despite delivering strong performances in Taps ($35.8 million), The Falcon and the Snowman ($17 million), and Q&A ($11 million), Hutton had never really capitalized on his Oscar winning performance in Ordinary People ($54 million). The Dark Half provided both men a chance to regain some well-deserved notoriety on behalf of King's clout.
The Dark Half told the personal tale (King had written novels under the pseudonym Richard Bachman) of an author (Hutton) who writes fiction under his name and gritty crime dramas under a pen name. When Hutton's character kills off his pseudonym, the fictitious author becomes a reality and begins to gruesomely murder those responsible for his "death". While certainly more in line with his fantasy horror films than Misery and Stand by Me, The Dark Half carried a heavier tone than say Sleepwalkers. In turn, The Dark Half was not expected to attract the slasher-film crowd that almost guaranteed a "number one double digit" opening (both Pet Sematary and Sleepwalkers opened atop the box office with $10+ million). However, the psychological-drama Misery did open to $10 million in 1990 on the strength of strong reviews and a killer trailer.
Could The Dark Half replicate Misery's success?
The Dark Half was set to open April 23, 1993 against very little competition. As already mentioned, King's name-brand had dominated spring 1992 with Sleepwalkers and The Lawnmower Man, so horror fans apparently liked some pre-summer scares. The only real blockbuster of the year, Indecent Proposal ($106 million), was in its third weekend, but both films were vying for a vastly different demographic. In fact, the horror genre had been largely untapped in the first quarter of '93. Leprechaun opened the second weekend of the year largely unnoticed and ended with a weak $8.5 million (however the franchise lives on via DVD). Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness opened in mid-February to nowhere near the fanfare it possesses today and finished with just $11.5 million; Peter Jackson's cult classic Dead Alive also suffered a similar fate ($242,000). The pseudo-horror film Fire in the Sky was at least moderately successful with $19 million, but can't really be classified as a straight up horror film. So either The Dark Half was about to quench movie-goer's thirst for a legitimate horror film or fall in line with the other box office underperformers of the genre.
The weekend's only other newcomers were the comedy Who's the Man? (starring the hosts of Yo! MTV Raps) and ensemble drama Indian Summer. Despite very little publicity, Who's the Man? would still benefit from the emerging hip-hop genre, a then untapped demographic that would yield several cost efficient hits throughout the '90s. Indian Summer boasted a who's who of '90s supporting players (Julie Warner, Vincent Spano, Elizabeth Perkins, and Kevin Pollack) with some still prominent actors working today (Alan Arkin, Diane Lane, and Bill Paxton). Unfortunately, Arkin, Lane, and Paxton carried zero box office clout in 1993, so Indian Summer was set for minimal business at best.
The only real threat at the box office was two-time champ Indecent Proposal; leaving The Dark Half to hedge its bets that movie-goers were primed and ready for some King.
Unfortunately, when it was all said and done, The Dark Half finished abysmally insixth place with just $3.2 million (finishing with an overall total of $10 million). Indecent Proposal finished in first yet again (it would top the box office one more weekend before succumbing to the summer blockbusters) with $10 million. Who's the Man? opened moderately well in second with $4.5 million (on just 954 screens). Certainly the comedy did not break any records (it finished with $11 million), but the film did show potential impact of the genre given a well-made product. Next year's hip-hop themed Above the Rim (starring Tupac Shakur) improved on Who's the Man's success and made a respectable $16 million. Even Indian Summer found more of an audience than The Dark Half, pulling in $3.3 million and finishing ultimately with just over $14 million. Outside of Indecent Proposal, nothing was really setting the box office on fire.
So why did the reliable King brand fail to connect with horror fans?
Quality was certainly a key issue. Not like Sleepwalkers was earning raves, but it did provide horror fans with some legitimate scares. The Dark Half was more of a psychological drama than an edge of your seat scare fest (*spoiler alert – hell the climax is a write-off between the author and his pseudonym...exciting***) and most critics felt Romero didn't pull it off the way he did decades before. The consensus was The Dark Half was too long, too drawn out, and worst of all boring. Romero had a hell of a time adapting to the thrill-a-minute scares horror fans enjoyed in the '80s and '90s and never really regained his mojo until he revisited his Night of the Living Dead franchise with 2005's Land of the Dead. Romero benefited greatly when the genre he created saw a resurgence of popularity earlier this decade.
Even still, King's name alone should have guaranteed a better weekend than The Dark Half mustered. Certainly when the bad buzz got out, the film would have suffered in its second frame. Were fans just tired of King's tales of horror?
An argument could be made.
King's Needful Things opened four months later with a similar poor opening ($5 million) and a slightly better final total ($16 million). In spring of 1995, both The Mangler ($1.7 million) and Dolores Claiborne ($24 million) performed well below expectations. Say what you will about its quality and reputation now, but King's The Shawshank Redemption was not the hit it was expected to be in 1994, finishing with just $28 million. Thinner ($15 million), The Night Flier ($125,000), and Apt Pupil ($8 million) showed that King's name had become more synonymous with "box office poison" as opposed to "box office guarantee." In all fairness, the horror genre had hit the skids in the mid-'90s and it wasn't really until 1996's Scream ($103 million) that "scary movies" discovered their new identity.
Unfortunately King never regained his clout as a box office sure thing (even his miniseries dominance has since waned). Occasionally, a film like The Green Mile ($136 million) or 1408 ($71 million) will show that King still has some box office pull, but mostly we get underperformers like The Mist ($25 million), Hearts in Atlantis ($24 million), and Dreamcatcher ($33 million).
The Verdict: As we also witnessed in the mid-'90s with John Grisham, even the most guaranteed of brand-names will over-saturate their welcome at the Cineplex.