Getting to Stephen King
The Rolling Stones may be right that "You can't always get what you want". However, I know, for sure, that you'll never get anything you want if you don't take a shot - odds be damned.
Stephen King is my literary hero. I've read his work since 1982 - with Pet Semetary leading me down his often, but not always, dark path. My goal, to go from fan to collaborator by adapting a feature film of one of his original works, was quite a leap.
I became a filmmaker in 1994 while attending UCLA's screenwriting program. In the same year, my favorite film of all time, "The Shawshank Redemption" was released. For years, many didn't know or believe that was a Stephen King-based film.
In fact, it was; Based on King's novella "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption", Director/Writer Frank Darabont created a nearly perfect film. He also shared how he got to Stephen King, in the script's notes: As an unknown, 20-year old filmmaker, Darabont wrote directly to King's agent requesting the rights to King's short story "The Woman in the Room" from the collection "Night Shift". King liked Darabont's adaptation of Woman enough to grant Darabont's next request as well: the rights to Shawshank.
Darabont's initial approach wasn't completely novel. He was following King's "Dollar Baby" program, where student filmmakers are allowed non-commercial rights to produce a work from his short films with his approval and the understanding that the films cannot be distributed commercially. The Dollar Baby program still exists and is more prolific than ever today. What was novel was the quality of Darabont's work.
Excited to land a King feature script of my own one day, I sent requests to King's assistant, Marsha DeFilippo, for the short story "Luckey Quarter" (that's his intentional misspelling). Like Shawshank, "Luckey Quarter" had a strong motif of hope, which struck a chord with me in this very endeavor. In an attempt to rise above the fray, I reminded Marsha that I'd continue to send requests every week until I heard back. I signed my requests "Andy Dufresne".
It worked.
As great of an experience as "Luckey Quarter" was, it was Simon & Schuster's (King's publisher) "American Gunslinger Contest" that got me to meet my idol. In anticipation of the release of "Wolves of Calla", the fifth of King's Magnum Opus, "The Dark Tower" series, the publisher's challenged King's Constant Readers to adapt a select scene from the books.
The resulting work won the contest and garnered me a meeting with the man himself in Simon & Schuster's Manhattan offices. After watching and greatly approving of the film, he gave me ten minutes of face time. We talked baseball, The Dark Tower and, finally, the project I wanted: "The Long Walk".
It was my moment of truth.
He told me to send him a script so he could see what I had in mind for it, noting it had to be done by an independent production so it wouldn't be watered down. I told him he had me pegged there.
A few months later, I sent my adaptation to King. Marsha got back to me quickly and, kindly as possible, with regrets: the rights to The Long Walk had been optioned...to Frank Darabont.
Not getting what I wanted was disappointing, but, in the grand scheme, understandable. Losing out to the man whose lead I was following taught me it might be best to stop following so closely.
At the time this blog was published (July 2017), Darabont still appears to hold the rights to The Long Walk, some 13 years after receiving them. Doing awesome work on three of King's works apparently earns you some latitude. No hard feelings, Frank. But if you ever decide to move on, perhaps you'll toss a fellow Dollar Baby Director a karmic bone...especially since King seems to have given you what you needed.