Stephen King has written, oh, about a bazillion books -- and approximately one kajillion of those have been adapted. Most have become major motion pictures, which is kinda odd considering King clearly gets paid by the metric tonne so most of his sprawling stories can't be contained in a film's two-hour timespan.
TV would therefore seem a better fit for King's prolifigate prose, which is precisely why Showcase turned King's The Colorado Kid into the ongoing series Haven, which expands weekly on the mystery novella. But what about all the other TV adaptations? Well, we have to wait and see if the Steven Spielberg-produced miniseries of King's most recent ten-pound tome Under the Dome will be as good as we hope, but here's a selection of other King TV to judge.
The Stand (1994)
King's greatest novel is also, not surprisingly, his greatest TV adaptation. This epic saga of a deadly superflu that culls most of humanity and sets up a biblical battle between good and evil could have used more than its eight-hour running time, even though it was based on the original book, rather than the re-released uncut edition. Coulda used a bigger budget, too, but the cast (Rob Lowe, Gary Sinese, Ruby Dee, Matt Frewer, Miguel Ferrer) was well-chosen, and by largely realizing King's vision, it became one of the most expansive post-apocalypses ever seen.
It (1990)
This classic book single-handedly justified every clown fear ever felt, and Tim Curry did Pennywise justice, single-handedly making this four-hour miniseries a horror fan favourite. But though the double-timelime structure remains – with the present-tense characters reminiscing over their childhood war against Pennywise – most of the sprawling 1100-page book had to be sadly excised. Also, the spider Big Bad at the end was total fromage.
The Langoliers (1995)
This underated novella about a plane that slips through the space-time continuum but doesn't go into the past so much as get passed over by time itself – and are confronted by creatures who chew up the past after we've left it behind -- got a half-assed televization that squandered the super-cool sci-fi premise and offered up little more than Bronson "Cousin Balkie" Pinchot in return.
Kingdom Hospital (2004)
This one was actually King adapting another creator's work -- Lars Von Trier's Danish miniseries The Kingdom -- which was a first (and last?) for the prolific writer. Set in Maine, of course, the series was about a haunted hospital, a premise that apparently sent viewers fleeing (14.5 million tuned into the premiere and a couple million were still watching toward the end). It involved a dude hit by a van (a la King's own infamous accident), a bunch of ghost kids, a secret society and, of course, an evil anteater. Don't know how this wasn't a success
The Dead Zone (2002-2007)
After his Brat Pack comrades Robe Low and Molly Ringwald starred in The Stand, Anthony Michael Hall musta called his agent every day until he got the gig of psychic John Smith. Obvs, his performance paled next to that of Christopher Walken in the David Cronenberg classic, but this USA series was actually pretty great, especially considering they went all-in and did a full long-running series rather than a mini. It probably clocked more onscreen hours than the rest of King's TV oeuvre combined.
The Shining (1997)
King had always hated the awesomely freaky Stanley Kubrick film because it veered so far from his original, alcoholism-inspired story, so he decided to re-do it as a six-hour miniseries. The result was a show that few TV remember even made it to TV, and those are the lucky ones. Let’s just say Wings star Steven Webber is no Jack Nicholson. Also, carnivorous bunny rabbit hedges are not really scary.
Golden Years (1991)
Though intended to be a full-length series, this show -- about an old-man janitor dosed with government-funded mad scientist chemicals and now aging backward while being pursued by shadowy federal agents -- was axed early into its run. Perhaps worried if the story moved to fast he’d have to deal with his main character as a tween, Golden Years paced itself and then was cancelled only a handful of episodes in after audiences grew bored.
The Tommyknockers (1993)
Though adapted by the same screenwriter who did It and Carrie, Tommyknockers landed with a resounding thud. Ultimately the problem was the story itself -- a tale of a buried green glowing UFO and its impact on a small New England town -- which was one of King's first failures. The miniseries failed to get the script into tip-top shape, but it did introduce TV viewers to the new show's hard-luck town of Haven, Maine. Or did it? Mwa-ha-ha!