A Sleepless Weekend: Mike Flanagan on ‘Doctor Sleep’ and His Path to Sobriety
Mike Flanagan made a multi-million dollar movie for three people. At Doctor Sleepless weekend, a two-day special event held in 2022 at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, Flanagan revealed when he was hired to write and direct Doctor Sleep, the 2019 sequel to The Shining, he refused to do so unless he got the blessing of Stephen King and, to a lesser extent, Stanley Kubrick (via his estate).
Famously, Stanley Kubrick produced the film adaptation of King’s hit novel and took a number of liberties with the story, and the characters. While the film itself is one of the most highly-regarded horror films of all time, King (and many of his fans) believe that Kubrick completely missed the point of the story.
The Shining tells the story of Jack Torrance, his wife Wendy, and his son Danny. The three spend a cold, colorless winter at The Overlook Hotel, with Jack serving as the hotel’s caretaker. But there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to The Overlook, and the Torrance family finds out just how many secrets are lurking within those hotel walls.
That’s the basic premise of The Shining and, for the most part, the movie gets it right. But it misses the fundamental piece of the story—it misses the heart.
That’s why Stephen King resents the film so much. In King’s book, Jack Torrance is a deeply flawed man. He’s an alcoholic who has been white-knuckling sobriety for the last five months. But, even despite his flaws, he is still a good man. He still loves Wendy and Danny. He’s haunted, sure. He’s put upon. But still, he tries. He tries so hard. He tries his best.
In the film, Jack Torrance (as portrayed by the iconic Jack Nicholson) is also a recovering alcoholic. But he seems to hate his family from the very first scene. In the film, The Overlook only needs to nudge Jack off the cliff into the depths of insanity. In the book, he is shoved, he is pushed, he is pulled and, when he’s hanging off the edge, Horace Derwent stomps on his fingers.
But he doesn’t let go, not completely.
That’s the fundamental difference in the book—a book that was heartbreakingly personal to Stephen King.
“The Shining is about addiction and specifically the anxiety Stephen King felt, that his alcoholism could’ve destroyed his family,” Mike Flanagan said in a GQ article.
The reason why The Shining was so personal to King was because it wasn’t just Jack’s story; it was his story. It was the story of his addiction, of his fears, of his trauma. When Kubrick took the story and shaped it in his own image, he left out the most important part of that story—redemption.
So, when Flanagan was tasked with directing the film adaptation of The Shining’s follow-up, Doctor Sleep, he didn’t just want to make a movie. Like Step 9, Flanagan wanted to make amends. Even if they weren’t his to make.
So, that’s what he did. And somehow, Flanagan crafted a film that was a sequel to both versions of The Shining. It honored what King wrote, but it also honored what Kubrick directed. Most of all, it found the heart of the story and presented it in a way that retroactively fixed King’s biggest issue with the film. It had all the makings of a hit.
And it completely bombed.
That’s okay, though. It’s okay because Flanagan got the only affirmation he needed from the only two people he needed it from: Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick (via his estate). He not only got their blessing to proceed with the film, he got their absolute admiration for what he was able to do with it. It’s also okay because Warner Brothers released a three-hour Director’s Cut version of the film, which was even better than the theatrical cut. And the film found new life via streaming services like HBO Max, Amazon Prime, and others.
Finally, it’s okay because Flanagan himself is secure enough in his talent, and the story he told, that he’s able to joke about the film already, even just four years later.
“I said to Kate [Siegel], ‘It’s incredible—both King and Kubrick’s camps are happy. The movie could bomb, and I’d still be thrilled,'” Flanagan stated. “And lo and behold, we went to see it on opening night at ArcLight Theater in Hollywood, my favorite movie theater…and we were the only ones there on a Friday night at 7:30 pm. And I looked around and said, ‘Yep, this is going to bomb.'”
Flanagan told that story to the crowd at Doctor Sleepless Weekend, alongside the creator and team of the NoSleep Podcast.
The event, which took place over a two-day period in the first week of November of 2022, was a joint production featuring live recordings of the NoSleep Podcast – a renowned horror podcast created by David Cummings and a special screening of the Director’s Cut of Doctor Sleep.
During the weekend, Flanagan and Siegel mingled with fans during cocktail hours and meet and greets. Siegel actually performed in a few of the NoSleep podcast live recordings. And, most importantly, Flanagan got the reception, maybe for the very first time, that his version of Doctor Sleep deserved.
Hundreds of horror fans gathered in The Lodge of The Stanley Hotel to watch the film and participate in a Q&A session with Flanagan after the screening. While there, the creator of the newly-released Fall of the House of Usher delved into the story behind the movie, the stories that came from the movie, and even his own story, which had more in common with the titular Doctor Sleep than one might imagine.
“My history with The Stanley goes way back,” Flanagan told the crowd before the film started. “I came here for the very first time in my life when we screened Oculus here about a decade ago. And as many of you know, The Shining was born right up the hill, in the MacGregor Room, where a lot of us just were. And now you’re going to see the project that probably made me throw up the most in my career: the sequel to The Shining, based on Stephen King’s fantastic 2013 novel, Doctor Sleep.”
Doctor Sleep was not Flanagan’s first time adapting a Stephen King project. Previously Flanagan wrote and directed an adaptation of King’s novel, Gerald’s Game which, for many years, was deemed “unfilmable” due to the fact that the majority of the story took place with one woman, lying in bed. Flanagan, however, saw the challenge, accepted it, and created a poignant film that more than earned King’s respect…and his blessing to move forward with Doctor Sleep. But Flanagan was still nervous about the prospect.
“Making this movie was one of the most intense, uncomfortable experiences of my life,” Flanagan laughed. “But it was also one of the most thrilling. I had a blast working on it. I went to bed every night, convinced I was going to fuck it up, and I woke up every morning absolutely nauseous. But the movie remains one of my all-time favorite experiences, in no small part due to the fact that I got to play in two incredible sandboxes: the sandboxes of the great Stephen King and the great Stanley Kubrick who, historically, didn’t get along so well.”
When the film was released in theaters in 2019, reviews were good. The film was received well and Flanagan was happy with it. But the Director’s Cut is his whole vision. It tells the full story. And that is the version that attendees of the Doctor Sleepless Weekend were able to see, on the big screen, for the very first time.
“This is the Director’s Cut of the film,” Flanagan told the crowd. “It’s my preferred cut. It was a minor miracle that Warner Brothers let me make this cut, much less release it. They only did it because IT did really well, and they didn’t know any better. But you guys are probably the only audience who’s ever seen it this way. This cut is only available on home video. People watch this at home. Sitting together and watching this, you guys are really the first audience I’ve ever seen that have gotten to enjoy the movie this way.”
And the audience really, really enjoyed the film. At just under three hours, the Director’s Cut of Doctor Sleep tells the story of a now adult Danny Torrance who, much like his father Jack, was using alcohol to battle the demons—both those from The Overlook and those that came from within. Unfortunately, as most alcoholics realize, peace can rarely be found at the bottom of a bottle.
That’s something that Danny Torrance eventually realized; something that his father never could. So what if the two could have a conversation about it? What if Danny could see his father one more time? What if he could speak to his dad and refuse the drink that Jack Torrance couldn’t?
That, Flanagan said, was the story that he wanted to tell. And that was his pitch to Stephen King, in order to get his blessing to proceed with the film.
“I kind of hung the whole movie on the idea that I wanted to do a faithful adaptation of Doctor Sleep until the very end,” Flanagan told The Stanley crowd. “As a reader, I was disappointed reading the book because they were on the site of The Overlook, but it wasn’t actually there. And that was because I realized that all of the visual iconography that was in my imagination while reading the book was all Kubrick’s. I grew up with that film. And so we approached King because I told them I wouldn’t do the movie unless he said it was okay. And I said, ‘I think we have to use the Kubrickian visual language and we have to rebuild The Overlook.'”
In the novel version of The Shining, The Overlook burned to the ground after Jack allowed the boiler to explode. But in the movie, The Overlook still stood, which gave Flanagan the opportunity to return to the scene of the beautiful and damned hotel.
“And Stephen King said no,” Flanagan laughed. “So I told him that I would walk away, ‘But I want to pitch you one thing: Imagine if Dan has to go back into The Overlook and wake it up. You always said he was like a battery. So imagine if he has to go charge it back up to use against Rose The Hat [Doctor Sleep’s antagonist]. Imagine he walks through all of the halls and that the last place he comes to is in The Gold Room, and there’s a drink waiting for him. And the bartender is in the familiar wardrobe, but it’s his father.'”
Flanagan said that King thought about it for a moment and finally gave his blessing.
Then, Flanagan got to work. He wrote the script and sent it to King for his review. Shortly after, King responded positively and enthusiastically, telling the writer/director that he loved the first half of the script but that his son was getting married, so he’d return to read the second half in a couple of weeks.
“And I was like,’ The back half is what you’re going to hate!'” Flanagan laughed. “So I was nauseous about that, but he ended up liking the script very much and I think the reason why is because the other thing I offered him was that, while we were definitely going to change the ending of Doctor Sleep from the book, I was going to give him the ending of The Shining that Kubrick didn’t give him. Basically, Dan would just take Jack’s sacrificial arc.”
Flanagan revealed that once the film was completed, he was able to bring it to King’s house, where they watched it together for the very first time.
“I sat next to him and we watched the whole thing, and I just stared at him the whole time,” he joked. “I’m sure that made him very uncomfortable; I overanalyzed every little twitch, tick, and smile that he made. But at the end of the film, he turned to me and said ‘You did a beautiful job.’ And later that night, I got an email from the Kubrick Estate, who said they were thrilled with the movie as well.”
With that, Mike Flanagan rebuilt the bridge that was burned back in 1980, if only just a little. He crafted something that honored what both King and Kubrick had created, while also creating something himself that was a beautiful, haunting portrait of magic, madness, addiction, and redemption.
It was these themes of addiction and redemption that most appealed to Flanagan and to the star of the film, Ewan McGregor.
Flanagan revealed that McGregor was on a large list of A-list celebrities who were in the running to play Danny Torrance. That list included incredible talents such as Chris Evans, Matt Smith, Dan Stevens, Jeremy Renner, and more. Flanagan told The Stanley crowd that all of those actors had the enthusiasm, the passion, and, certainly, the talent to portray Dan Torrance. Ewan McGregor had all of those things as well, but he also had something that, for this role in particular, made him the perfect casting choice.
He had the same story as Danny, the same background, the same “look.”
“Ewan arrived and came in and said ‘Whoa, my God, The Shining, Jack Nicholson, Stanley Kubrick; I think that’s neat, but let’s not talk about that. I want to talk about recovery and sobriety,” Flanagan remembered. “At that time, Ewan was eight years sober which, coincidentally, was exactly where Danny was in the script. So Ewan talked about his road to sobriety and, not a third of the way through the conversation, I knew he was going to be cast.”
So, he was. Ewan McGregor played Danny Torrance as a tired, beaten down, sad human being, beholden to his gift that was more like a curse. He played him as somebody who was “sick and tired of being sick and tired,” because McGregor, at one point in his life, had also been sick and tired.
“He recognized something that King echoed later when we finished the film, which was that The Shining is about alcoholism. About King’s anxiety, about what his alcoholism could do to his family if left unchecked,” Flanagan said. “And Doctor Sleep was written by a man who was decades sober at that point. In the way that The Shining is ice and Doctor Sleep is fire, The Shining is addiction and Doctor Sleep is recovery. And Ewan understood that better than anybody.”
Anybody except, perhaps, Flanagan himself.
While Doctor Sleep was a work of catharsis for Stephen King and for Ewan McGregor, it was also an opportunity for Mike Flanagan to consider his own journey; one that would eventually lead to the path of sobriety.
“So, I got sober while I was working on this movie,” Flanagan told the crowd, who immediately erupted into a round of applause. “The degree to which alcohol was a serious problem in my life wasn’t clear to me, despite the fact that I had written about it and put it into my movies going back at least a decade, before this woke me up in a pretty big way.”
Recovery was, as it turned out, a prevalent theme throughout the shooting of Doctor Sleep. In addition to King, McGregor, and Flanagan, Rebecca Ferguson (Rose The Hat) was also four years sober. So, too, was Zahn McClarnon (Crow Daddy), who was six years sober at the time of filming. Without even recognizing it, the biggest theme of Doctor Sleep was also the biggest theme of the real-life production. Creating this film, and telling this story, was cathartic for so many different individuals. But it was especially cathartic for Flanagan himself.
“I quit drinking and quietly tried to sift through my life and figure out what that meant,” he shared. “And a year to the day that I quit, on my first birthday, I reached out to Stephen King, who I hadn’t said anything about this to. And I said, ‘I just wanted you to know that it’s been a year since I had a drink, and it’s because of you and your writing. That’s a big part why because I got to inhabit this story about recovery in such a profound way, so I want to thank you.’”
Flanagan said that King immediately wrote him back.
“That’s really neat,” King responded. “Today is my 30th anniversary of sobriety.”
Flanagan said that he and King share the same sobriety birthday, another coincidence in a production that was full of them. Because Ka is a wheel; its one purpose is to turn.
“My wife has said that she sees the most of me in the scene with Dan and Jack at the bar,” Flanagan said. “She could see it on the page even before I saw it completely clearly. And she was a huge part of all of that. Everything about my life has gotten nothing but better since that day. And I will always love the film for that. Regardless of its box office performance or anything else, that, for me, is what Doctor Sleep became. I had no idea when it started, but that’s what it would be.”
And maybe that’s what was always supposed to happen. Maybe that’s what the story of The Shining, of Doctor Sleep, of Jack and Danny Torrance was always supposed to be—a reflection. An opportunity. A chance for Stephen King, for Mike Flanagan, for anybody struggling with addiction to think about their own lives, their own journeys, and their own trauma, and then make a decision.
Do we, like Jack, sit at the bar and let Lloyd the Bartender pour us a drink? It’s on the house, after all. Or, do we do what Danny did? Or what Stephen King did? Do we do what Mike Flanagan and Ewan McGregor and Rebecca Ferguson and Zahn McClarnon did? Do we do what, in many cases, our parents never could? Do we take the drink and let the drink take us or do we break the cycle? Do we stand up? Do we shine?
Those are the questions that Doctor Sleep asked and it’s why this project was so personal to all those who helped create it.
Mike Flanagan made a multi-million dollar movie for three people. He made it for Stanley Kubrick, to celebrate a film that’s been called one of the greatest horror movies ever produced. He made it to remind audiences what an absolutely exceptional auteur Kubrick was; a director with an eye that will forever remain unmatched.
Flanagan also made it for Stephen King, as a way to honor what was, quite possibly, King’s most personal, vulnerable story; a story that proves that peace is attainable, that sobriety is reachable, that redemption is possible, and that hope is never, truly, lost.
And, maybe most importantly of all, Mike Flanagan made Doctor Sleep for himself, even if he didn’t realize it completely at first. While Flanagan was probably never chased through a hedge maze by his father who was possessed by the spirits of a 4-star hotel, Flanagan saw a lot of himself in Danny Torrance. He, like Stephen King, like Ewan McGregor, had “the look.” That look is something that not everybody can recognize. But those of us who can, those of us who have been there, we understand that Doctor Sleep was a love letter. It’s a love letter to those we’ve lost and a love letter to ourselves, whom we almost lost.
For Mike Flanagan, Doctor Sleep represented a monumental shift in his life, one that couldn’t have been easy but one that was so incredibly worth it. Whether the film was successful or not, it may have been the most important project he ever made, for himself and for anybody else who has ever battled addiction.
This is why, in November of 2022 at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, Flanagan was finally given the reception that his film deserved. After the credits rolled on Doctor Sleep, Flanagan received a standing ovation from the adoring crowd. And during the Q&A session after the movie, one of the attendees stood up and said what the entire room was thinking.
“I didn’t really have a question, necessarily,” the fan stated. “Just a comment. I know you said that when the film came out, it flopped and that you and Kate were the only ones in the theater during its opening… but this is the screening you were always meant to have.”
Categorized:Editorials
