It’s an uneasy time to be a Shining fan with a vested interest in the immaculate horror story’s legacy. Thirty-six years after the original novel, Stephen King will release a sequel, Doctor Sleep, in 2013. And just to double up on the suddenly alarmed hearts of fans who thought the tale’s final grave-roll was that 1997 ABC miniseries (which basically only this writer will acknowledge as not horrible), Warner Bros. is “quietly exploring the possibility of a prequel,” the L.A. Times reports. The studio has contacted Laeta Kalogridis, who wrote Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island and executive produced James Cameron’s Avatar, to “craft a new take” on Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, which Stephen King has always hated. The prequel would investigate the happenings of the Torrances prior to their family vacation to the Overlook, though “a WB spokeswoman cautioned that any Shining prequel was in a very early stage and not even formally in development.” If it does come together, this’ll be the all-time strangest and most sudden materialization of a media-hopscotching trilogy. (Although not totally surprising, considering the recent heat behind high-profile adaptations for King’s It, The Stand, and The Dark Tower.)
