Stephen King overtakes Agatha Christie as most adapted author & reveals 10 favourite films

Horror icon Stephen King is having a large surface infinitesimal this year, what pinch nan merchandise of The Monkey, The Life of Chuck and nan upcoming adaptations of The Long Walk coming retired this week and The Running Man remake hitting theatres in November.

But past again, erstwhile does nan prolific writer not person a banner cinematic year? Plus, nan ones conscionable mentioned don’t see nan mini screen’s The Institute, It: Welcome To Derry and nan Carrie miniseries, which are coming soon.

King's useful person been transposed to some nan large surface and nan mini surface for decades, pinch much than 55 book-to-feature adaptations since 1976’s Carrie. When besides accounting for TV shows and miniseries, his stories person been brought to nan screens good complete 100 times.

By our count, that makes King, 77, nan 2nd writer successful history pinch nan astir cinematic adaptations – only down William Shakespeare and conscionable supra Agatha Christie.

Not bad for a scribe pinch a dream from Portland, Maine.

But King isn’t conscionable a maestro storyteller whose stories consciousness tailor-made for nan large screen; he’s besides a cinephile (as good arsenic an outspoken Trump critic). He has delighted Film Twitter by revealing his 10 favourite movies of each time, “in nary peculiar order”.

He excluded Misery, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and Stand By Me from contention fixed they were based connected his work. 

His database consists of nan 1977 action-thriller Sorcerer; The Godfather Part II; Steve McQueen thriller The Getaway; ‘90s drama classical Groundhog Day; wartime epic Casablanca; the1948 Western The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre; Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets; Steven Spielberg’s Jaws and Close Encounters of nan Third Kind; and 1944 crime noir Double Indemnity. 

Any database pinch Sorcerer successful it gets our ballot of approval.

However, we’re a smidge amazed by nan deficiency of horror (Jaws aside) and nan truth that Ratatouille, The Exorcist and nary David Lynch make nan list.

No matter, we’ll prevention those for our favourite films list.

What do you make of his ‘70s-heavy list, and do you work together pinch King’s caller comments that nan superhero genre features “pornographic” violence?  

Indeed, King told The Times that he insisted to The Long Walk screenwriter JT Mollner and head Francis Lawrence that nan young characters successful nan film, who participate a stepping title successful which each but nan victor are executed, must beryllium shown being brutally killed. 

“If you look astatine these superhero movies, you’ll see… immoderate supervillain who’s destroying full metropolis blocks but you ne'er spot immoderate blood,” he explained. “And man, that’s wrong. It’s almost, like, pornographic.” 

He added: “I said, if you’re not going to show it [in The Long Walk], don’t bother. And truthful they made a beautiful sadistic movie.”

We can't wait.

Set successful a dystopian US, “The Long Walk” - published successful 1979 nether King’s pseudonym Richard Bachman, depicts 100 young men entering an yearly stepping title successful which they must support a velocity of astatine four miles per hr (6.4km/h) aliases they will beryllium killed. The victor is nan past remaining walker.

Starring Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson and Charlie Plummer, nan movie hits theatres successful nan US, UK, Ireland, Italy and different territories connected Friday, while nan likes of France, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden will person to hold until early October to get to spot it connected nan biggest surface possible.