Movies - TV
Why One Stephen King Book Will Never Get A Movie Adaptation
By VALERIE ETTENHOFER
Horror author Stephen King’s books have been adapted into movies countless times, but there's one book he wrote at 18 that will likely never make it to the big screen: "Rage."
"Rage" detailed a school shooting from the shooter's point-of-view. Unfortunately, it became linked to real-life school shooters, some of whom saw it as a guidebook of sorts.
As King said in his essay "Guns," the first hint of trouble came in April 1988, when a student in California fired a gun at school and said that "Rage" was one of his inspirations.
In three other school shootings from 1989 to 1997, the perpetrators had read "Rage," with one acting out the book's storyline and another paraphrasing a quote from the text.
"That was enough for me," King wrote, noting that at the time he only knew that two incidents related back to his book. "I asked my publisher to pull the novel from publication."
King has never spoken directly about a "Rage" adaptation, but he hasn't had to. The author's decision to pull the book was sound, and there's no reason to keep the story alive.