Stephen King's 2-Film Horror Franchise Is Officially Everything 'IT' Should Have Been

Published Sep 21, 2026, 4:00 AM EDT

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Carolyn Jenkins is a voracious consumer of film and television. She graduated from Long Island University with an MFA in Screenwriting and Producing where she learned the art of character, plot, and structure. The best teacher is absorbing media and she spends her time reading about different worlds from teen angst to the universe of Stephen King.

Killer clowns. Childhood trauma. Alien spiders. Andy Muschietti’s 2017 adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal classic, IT, had everything going for it. Finally, the beloved story would have the modern adaptation that it deserved. After the campy Tim Curry Pennywise, the two-part film series delved into the true depths of horror as Bill Skarsgård took the stage as Pennywise.

IT: Chapter One was a phenomenal, faithful adaptation of the central story, while updating the ‘50s nostalgia to the ’80s. The decision to split up King’s tome was a necessary one, but inevitably, the ending of IT: Chapter Two would not have the same juice as its predecessor. The chemistry between the kids did not translate to their adult counterparts. Though it was a solid attempt, the IT franchise was a bit unbalanced. This was not the case for another two-part series that succeeded where IT failed.

Upon its release, **Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep was tragically not embraced. Stephen King’s sequel to The Shining was a fascinating look at sobriety after Jack Torrance’s reign of terror. Doctor Sleep would later be acknowledged as a successor to The Shining in a way that didn’t work with IT.

Four franchises, four completely different ways of getting underneath your skin. This is the one built out of your particular fear, why it works so well on you, and what it would leave behind.

Your nightmare does not wait outside the door. It waits for you to close your eyes, which you are going to have to do eventually, because nobody has ever won that particular argument.

Your nightmare is not really the doll. It is the face of the person you tell, and the way they decide, very kindly, that you have imagined all of it.

Your nightmare has your number, knows your name, and has almost certainly been inside your house before. The worst part is that you already know them.

Your nightmare is not really about you. It is about the people asleep down the hall, and the feeling that whatever is here is not interested in leaving.

Flanagan accomplished this by seamlessly interweaving the canon of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and King’s original story. The*** Eyes Wide Shut*** filmmaker famously threw the king of horror off-kilter with the monumental changes he made to the story. Flanagan’s movie went a long way to rectifying this with the story of Dan Torrance’s (Ewan McGregor) struggle with sobriety in adulthood.

Doctor Sleep picks up decades after his father’s demise in the hedge maze of the Overlook Hotel. While this ending differed from King’s original vision, Flanagan still made it work. After Dan meets Abra Stone (Kyliegh Curran), another child with the Shining, the final showdown with the terrifying psychic vampires known as the True Knot occurs at the structure, which is still standing. Flanagan incorporates the unforgettable score from Kubrick’s movie and the unsettling decor.

The ending of King’s book is also honored, as the Overlook finally gets the book-accurate conclusion the author was waiting for. At the end of The Shining, King writes that the hotel explodes because of the incident in the boiler room. Though Kubrick’s version had an icier ending, the fate of the Overlook finally comes to a head. The hotel burns to the ground at the end of Doctor Sleep, making a clear indication that both versions were worthy of portrayal. This was the difference between *The Shining *franchise and IT, which was almost shackled by its devotion to book accuracy.

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