The fall of 2025 has brought with it an avalanche of Stephen King: almost in consecutive weeks we have had the premiere of ‘The long march‘ and ‘The Running Man‘, and shortly before the series started ‘It: Welcome to Derry‘ on HBO Max. Three great productions in just one month. Are we facing an unimaginative industry that constantly turns to the same author, or is it that King continues to offer something that others cannot? The answer has three keys: the so-called Kingaissance, the decisive factor of the streaming and the current value of King, which has not been devalued by bad adaptations.
Debunking the myth. To deny King’s supposed dependence on the horror genre, just look at the last twelve months of releases. Independent horror is enjoying an unsuspected golden age: ‘Longlegs’, for example, grossed more than one hundred million dollars at the box office with a budget of just ten, and films like ‘The substance‘ have given terror a life-long breath of quality, including Oscar nominations. Classic franchises such as ‘Final Destination’ are recovered, ‘Frankenstein’ is sweeping Netflix and a star system from horror creators: the aforementioned Perkins, Prano Bailey-Bond, Danny and Michael Philippou, Zach Creggar and Rose Glass, among others.
The Kingaissance. The Anglo-Saxon media coined a term to describe what is happening: the “Kingaissance“, a revival that has a precise birth date. In September 2017, ‘It’ by Andy Muschietti became an unexpected cultural phenomenon: With a budget of just thirty-five million, it grossed more than seven hundred globally, becoming the highest-grossing horror film in history without adjusting for inflation.
What followed was an avalanche. Without exhaustiveness: ‘Doctor Sleep’, ‘Animal Graveyard’, ‘Eyes of Fire’, ‘Salem’s Lot’, ‘In the Tall Grass’, the series ‘Apocalypse’ and ‘Chapelwaite’… And now, three more adaptations, to which will be added the future television ‘Carrie’ by Mike Flanagan, ‘The Talisman’ for Netflix and perhaps a new ‘Cujo’. The difference with the eighties is abysmal. Back then, TV movies and B series predominated: now they are series on HBO and films with established directors. King himself often has creative control and serves as executive producer on many of these projects.
The factor streaming. For decades, adaptations of King’s longer novels have been handicapped by having to compress their length to the margins of the feature film. He streaming changed the rules of the game: platforms now allow series of eight or ten episodes that respect the author’s narrative complexity, something that had previously only been experienced in miniseries format, in productions such as the first version of ‘It’ or ‘The Store’.
It happened with ‘11.22.63’, with ‘The Stranger’, with ‘Lisey’s Story’ (which King personally wrote)… Now it is the turn of the prequel to the latest version of ‘It’, and it is clear how the logic of the platforms works: they look for recognizable IPs, and King offers dozens of stories with a bomb-proof dramatic structure.
But there were bad adaptations of King. And they didn’t kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. It’s always happened: there are adaptations in miniseries format in the nineties, like ‘The Langoliers’ or ‘The Shining’ that are a pain. Since the nineties there have been as many weak King films as there have been notable ones. Very recent is the horrendous ‘The Dark Tower’ from 2017, which compressed eight novels into 95 disastrous minutes. Or ‘Cell’, absolutely forgettable. Why didn’t these catastrophes sink King’s value?
First, the original novels remain, at worst, more than readable, and at best, downright excellent: the source material is indestructible. Second, readers clearly distinguish between author and adaptation, continue to appreciate the writer, and continue to try their hand at adaptations. Third, the good adaptations (‘The Shining,’ ‘Carrie,’ ‘It,’ ‘Misery,’ the original ‘Pet Sematary’) are so good that we’ll always come back for more.
Why we return to King. The answer, despite appearances, is not a lack of ideas, but rather that we are faced with a name of proven effectiveness, even in its worst moments: few have that commercial hook combined with minimum standards of quality and entertainment. King has more than 65 novels and 200 short stories, an inexhaustible mine whose themes will never go out of style and are universal: generational traumas, addictions, the problems of the working class, invisible threats, the corruption of power, the weight of our past…
And to top it off, we are in the era of the IP. So it is not an issue that affects only him. Marvel, DC, Disney… In 2024, the ten highest-grossing films They all came from pre-existing intellectual properties. And Hollywood seeks familiarity: from the Agatha Christie films directed by Kenneth Branagh to the explosion of video game adaptations like ‘fallout‘, ‘The Last of Us‘ and ‘Super Mario Bros.: The Movie‘. An ideal scenario for a brand that, undoubtedly, has had its ups and downs, but that right now enjoys unexpected iron health.
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