Osgood Perkins’ The Monkey sets a promising future for Stephen King’s theatrical adaptations, ending the author’s six-year rotten movie adaptation streak on Rotten Tomatoes. Notably, the golden age of Stephen King movie adaptations is the ’80s and ’90s, with a total of 29 movies, including all-time classics like The Shining, Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption, and The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Zone. Though a few modern films by rising directors claimed top places among the best King movies, the last decade has seen numerous King adaptations with terrible receptions.
Notably, Stephen King’s works remain a huge source of inspiration and continue, more than ever, to produce movie and TV projects that attract audiences to the author’s varied and, sometimes shocking, imaginings. In recent years, movies that made the worst changes to Stephen King’s books have resulted in fans of the talented author experiencing widespread disappointment that tainted films bearing the King stamp. However, The Monkey‘s positive reviews foreshadow a resurgence of great King adaptations — with great genre directors like Perkins, Mike Flanagan, and Edgar Wright all set to release one in 2025.
The Monkey Is The First Stephen King Movie In 6 Years That’s Not Divisive On RT
Recent Remakes Of Stephen King Movie Adaptations Have Terrible Scores
The Monkey is now the first King movie certified fresh since Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep, both movies receiving a 78% score. Notably, Flanagan garnered an impressive 91% score for the Netflix release Gerald’s Game and is set to deliver another acclaimed Stephen King adaptation with The Life of Chuck this year. However, Perkins’ unexpected success — with Stephen King’s reactions to The Monkey praising its great blend of comedy and horror — redeems the rotten adaptations of recent years, whose critics’ scores range between as low as 11% and as high as 62%.
|
Stephen King Movies From The Last 6 Years |
||
|---|---|---|
|
тιтle |
Critics’ Score |
Audience Score |
|
The Monkey (2025) |
78% |
60% |
|
‘Salem’s Lot (2024) |
46% |
38% |
|
The Boogeyman (2023) |
61% |
66% |
|
Firestarter (2022) |
10% |
47% |
|
Mr. Harrigan’s Phone (2022) |
46% |
50% |
|
Children of the Corn (2020) |
11% |
38% |
|
Pet Sematary (2019) |
57% |
33% |
|
Doctor Sleep (2019) |
78% |
89% |
|
In The Tall Grᴀss (2019) |
35% |
33% |
|
It: Chapter Two (2019) |
62% |
78% |
It’s not strange that three out of ten recent adaptations are remakes of movies from the ’80s, one from the ’70s, and another from the ’90s, as that period still holds the most beloved King book-to-screen adaptations. However, the intent to bring back the success of the originals has rarely paid off, with Firestarter and Children of the Corn receiving terrible reviews, and ‘Salem’s Lot and Pet Sematary failing to stand out. There are plenty of Stephen King stories better than their movies, and lately, adaptations have fallen prey to those vices.
Why So Many Stephen King Movies Haven’t Worked Lately
Recent Stephen King Movies Betray The Books Or Fail To Adapt Them To Film
Notably, an evident weakness in recent King movie adaptations is the low quality of straight-to-streaming movies, with Firestarter producing a Razzie Awards controversy for its acting. Another common critique is that they betray the source material or indulge in a reimagining that doesn’t take into account what fans love about the story in the first place, such as Children of the Corn and The Boogeyman. Naturally, creators have also struggled to adapt works written 30 or 40 years ago, with some themes or concepts falling short of today’s film and genre standards, but too many adaptations have failed to capture what made the stories resonate in the first place.
Alternatively, in looking for Stephen King stories that haven’t been adapted yet, some writers have opted for his short stories, producing movies that suffer from a thin and dragged storyline, like Mr. Harrigan’s Phone and In The Tall Grᴀss. Additionally, some fall to the side when compared to earlier fan-favorite adaptations, as they either fail to replicate their accomplishments or don’t offer anything new. Lastly, it has been said that some of King’s stories are unadaptable, highlighting that there’s always something missing when translating a book to screen, sometimes in ways that make it challenging for an adaptation to thrive.
2025 Looks Like An Amazing Year For Stephen King Movies
2025 Brings The Release Of Mike Flanagan’s And Edgar Wright’s Stephen King Adaptations
It’s hard to convey in film all the little and affecting details of King’s prose, that is, unless you are one of the most experienced directors and screenwriters of the genre. Perkins and Flanagan have proven to be capable of doing so, and Edgar Wright is set to be the next to try it as his adaptation of The Running Man comes out this year. Hopes are that Wright’s remake stays truer to the source material, unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1987 eponymous film, which was too campy for King’s enthusiasts.
Flanagan’s atmospheric and character-driven horror has been noted to suit the author’s stories perfectly, making critics coin the director the new king of King.
However, 2025’s long-awaited adaptation is Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck, as it had an amazing reception at the Toronto Film Festival, earning a score that surpᴀsses even The Monkey. Flanagan’s atmospheric and character-driven horror has been noted to suit the author’s stories perfectly, making critics coin the director the new king of King. However, Wright’s Shaun of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ likens Perkin’s over-the-top style, which all but confirms another ground-breaking movie that paves the way for an exciting new era of Stephen King adaptations.
Sources: Rotten Tomatoes
