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Stephen King is one of the most celebrated and iconic horror writers of all time, but he’s also a storyteller whose work has been adapted into dozens of movies and TV shows with, shall we say, mixed results. While some of the very best films of all time are based on King’s work like “The Shining” and “The Shawshank Redemption,” there are plenty of utter trash movies that have a “based on the novel by Stephen King” credit. Still, even if they may be a toss coin in terms of quality a lot of the time, any new Stephen King adaptation is at least worth paying attention to.
With Halloween finally upon us, spooky movies and shows are dominating the streaming charts for every platform out there, including Max. Indeed, the streamer formerly known as HBO Max has a variety of creepy titles residing in its current top 10, ranging from M. Night Shyamalan’s twisted serial killer flick “Trap” to Tim Burton’s stop-motion animated feature “Corpse Bride.” Sitting comfortably among them on Max’s top charts are, unsurprisingly, not one, not two, but three Stephen King adaptations — namely, the 2024 film version of “Salem’s Lot” from Gary Dauberman, as well as Andy Muschietti’s “It” and “It Chapter Two” (via FlixPatrol).
Granted, there is virtually nothing connecting these two movies that I could draw a thesis on, beyond the fact that they are all based on Stephen King books and were both distributed by Warner Bros. But why these three films out of the many King adaptations available to stream on Max? Why isn’t “The Shining” or its excellent follow-up “Doctor Sleep” in the top 10? Well, the answer to that last part is that the world isn’t fair, but the answer to the first half is a bit easier.
It is one of the biggest Stephen King adaptations ever made
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Why is it that these two particular movie adaptations are so popular on Max? Well, “Salem’s Lot” is a new release, and as the box office shows time and time again, audiences tend to be extremely drawn to new horror releases even if they aren’t exactly well-reviewed (or, in this case, were released directly to streaming). Dauberman’s long-delayed adaptation has had a bumpy ride, but it survived Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav’s chopping block and is finally available for all to see. While /Film’s Chris Evangelista wasn’t enthusiastic about the film, calling it “uninspired” and “dull” in his review, Max subscribers don’t seem to mind, granted that it’s been topping the streamer’s charts for much of October.
As for the “It” movies, even if the two-part film adaptation is seven years old at this point, it remains a quintessential Stephen King movie (well, movies) to watch around Halloween, and easily the two highest-grossing movies based on Stephen King books. The first film is still a rather spectacular piece of big-budget horror filmmaking, a fantastic adaptation, and a fun yet scary movie with a stellar cast. The sequel, unfortunately, did not live up to the expectations the first part set up, but it was nevertheless hugely successful at the box office (so it did something right).
Even to this day, Stephen King movies in general are still quite popular with audiences, with Pennywise no doubt remaining the most well-known movie clown (outside of maybe Art the Clown). Needless to say, people aren’t going to stop being scared by clowns anytime soon, either.
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