He’s the brilliant mind whose ideas have inspired countless film adaptations with plenty more to come. However, despite his usually critical views over his adapted horror works, Stephen King isn’t that tough of a judge, as the author recently confesses the only movie he’s ever walked out of was Michael Bay's Transformers.
King's contributions to cinema are simply far too many, but even his own stories tend to make for some absolute box office or critical bombs, as shown by the most recent film adaptation Firestarter. That said, recent hits like Netflix's Gerald's Game and 1922, HBO's The Outsider, or the blockbuster It all show how great a King classic can be. Yet, for each time King must have witnessed one of his works being butchered, only Bay's Transformers was really capable of pushing his buttons that much.
This revelation came up during a Twitter exchange with fellow author Linwood Barclay (No Time for Goodbye), who tweeted out that Jurassic World Dominion had been the first movie he’d walked out of in quite a while. King responded by saying Transformers takes that honor for him. To be clear, King seems a bit more lenient than Barclay, as the latter is just adding Jurassic World's closing chapter to a bigger list, whereas for King there is no second worst to Bay's explosive special effects showcase.
Keeping up with his usual Twitter persona, King also asked publicly what other movies had people walked out of. Some mentioned the likes of Vanilla Sky, Mother, Red Riding Hood, and even the first Mission: Impossible, thus proving every mind is a world of its own. Funnily enough, King is usually quite the optimist about current entertainment, even offering praise for Yellowjackets earlier this year.
So what it is about Transformers that annoyed King so much? Well, unfortunately, the author didn’t really address that part, though it’s not hard to imagine a novelist who favors character development not caring much for giant CGI robots. As for the largely-panned Jurassic World Dominion, King also didn’t offer his opinion on that one, but there’s no telling if that means he hasn’t seen it or if it simply was passable enough for him.
Currently, HBO is working on an It prequel series, though anyone wanting to go over a list of King's best movie adaptations can always give Carrie or Misery a try, just keep in mind that King doesn't have much love for The Shining.
Source: Stephen King | Twitter