Mike Flanagan to Direct Sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep

Mike Flanagan has set his next horror film in Doctor Sleep, the adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining sequel. Deadline reports that Warner Bros. has tapped Flanagan (Gerald’s Game, Oculus) to direct the film. At this point it is not yet known if the movie will be a sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film, or if it will follow on the novel’s original storyline.

Published 36 years after The Shining, Doctor Sleep follows an adult Danny Torrance from the original novel. Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel, where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant shining power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.” There Dan meets Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival.