"What The F*** Was That?" Morgan Freeman's Shawshank Redemption Follow-Up Killed Stephen King Movies For 14 Years

Dreamcatcher was Morgan Freeman’s return to Stephen King adaptations nearly a decade after The Shawshank Redemption, but its failure set the author back on the big screen for years. Stephen King movies became a staple shortly after the runaway success of Brian De Palma’s fiery adaptation of Carrie in 1976.

King may have hated Kubrick’s The Shining, but it became a classic in its own right. That 1980 horror epic then led to a wave of King adaptations throughout the decade, which continued into the 1990s, too. Scarcely a year went past without a major new King film or miniseries, but by the early 2000s, things began to slow down.

Movies like Apt Pupil and Hearts in Atlantis came and went with little fanfare, but Warner Bros had big plans for King’s sci-fi horror tale Dreamcatcher. This follows four childhood friends whose hunting getaway is spoiled by the arrival of some pesky aliens.

Morgan Freeman’s Shawshank Redemption Follow-Up Was A Bomb

Morgan Freeman as Colonel Abraham Curtis with giant fake eyebrows in Dreamcatcher

Dreamcatcher is notable for being Timothy Olyphant’s only King movie, but its major selling point was that Morgan Freeman was playing the villain. Freeman’s acclaimed turn in The Shawshank Redemption turned him into an A-list star, so his return to Stephen King land was big news.

Of course, Dreamcatcher is no Shawshank Redemption, and Freeman’s performance as the homicidal Colonel Curtis utterly lacks the warmth and humanity of Red. In truth, Freeman doesn’t have much screentime in the film – and feels utterly disengaged whenever he does appear.

Despite having a great cast and promising a mix of Stand by Me and Aliens, Dreamcatcher was a financial dud, grossing a shade over $81 million worldwide. That’s around $152 million when adjusted for inflation, but considering it cost about $70 million to produce, Warner Bros’ return on investment was pretty weak.

It didn’t help that it received roundly poor reviews and sits at 27% on Rotten Tomatoes. King himself didn’t think much of Dreamcatcher either, but considering he doesn’t like the book – which was written in physical agony as he recovered from his near-fatal 1999 accident – that’s not a surprise.

Dreamcatcher Flopping Led To A Stephen King Movie Drought

Damian Lewis' Jonesy, Thomas Jane's Henry, Timothy Olyphant's Pete and Jason Lee's Beaver all toasting to a dreamcatcher in Dreamcatcher — Damian Lewis’ Jonesy, Thomas Jane’s Henry, Timothy Olyphant’s Pete and Jason Lee’s Beaver all toasting to a dreamcatcher in Dreamcatcher

Looking back on Dreamcatcher’s failure reveals some stark effects. Lawrence Kasdan’s career (The Big Chill) never quite recovered, and he has only helmed one film since. There was a notable lack of King movies in the aftermath of Dreamcatcher too, especially compared to the years before 2003.

The next King adaptation was Secret Window, and while this Johnny Depp thriller was a reasonable success, it was actually sH๏τ before Dreamcatcher hit screens. The next film was Riding the Bullet, which barely got a release and bombed, and there were no new King adaptations on the big screen for three years.

There were numerous TV efforts like a 2004 adaptation of Salem’s Lot and The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Zone TV series, but there was a general air of Stephen King fatigue. Maybe audiences and filmmakers had burned out on mediocre takes on the author’s books, and a break was needed.

It really wasn’t until the huge success of IT: Chapter One in 2017 that audiences and critics got back on board the King movie train. In the aftermath, there were multiple adaptations, including Doctor Sleep, Pet Sematary, The Boogeyman and many more. In 2025 alone, there will be takes on the author’s The Running Man and The Long Walk.

Morgan Freeman Said “What The F*** Was That?” After Reading Dreamcatcher’s Script

Morgan Freeman and Tom Sizemore talking in a control room in Dreamcatcher.

Thomas Jane is the unofficial lead of Dreamcatcher, with his troubled therapist character being the one who has to save the day. During an episode of The Kingcast podcast, Jane opened up about the time he, Freeman and the cast read the screenplay from beginning to end. According to Jane, Freeman was not entirely impressed.

Larry [Kasdan] wanted to have a stage reading where all of the actors got together and we all sat around in a little room at the H๏τel and we read the script. And there’s Morgan Freeman, and [Tom] Sizemore, and [Timothy] Olyphant, and [Damian] Lewis, and we’re reading this thing, you know, actors in a room with a director read the story. And we read the whole damn thing from beginning to end, it takes longer reading for some reason, it took us like 3 hours. And at the end of it, finally, we finish the damn thing. Morgan Freeman closes his script and goes, “What the f*** was that?”

Presumably, Freeman had read Dreamcatcher’s screenplay before signing on, but he clearly wasn’t pleased when he heard it read aloud. This may account for why the veteran star feels so aloof in the final product, and conveys little of the menace that Curtis is supposed to; his bushy eyebrows are distracting too.

Dreamcatcher Deserves Another Chance At An Adaptation

Jason Lee as Beaver with an alien worm in Dreamcatcher

Dreamcatcher was penned by King with the aid of painkillers and is an overlong, messy novel. The movie inherited much of the same faults, jumping from intimate drama to gross-out body horror to scenes of military choppers blasting aliens with little sense of pace or tone.

For the issues of both the source material and the film, there is a good adaptation to be made from Dreamcatcher. Like every King novel, it’s littered with creative concepts and terrifying scenes. A highlight of the 2003 film is the bathroom scene, where one of the protagonists is trapped in a bathroom with an alien snake.

Dreamcatcher’s bathroom setpiece is funny, disgusting and scary at the same time, and the relationships between the four friends in the story are genuinely moving. There’s also an extended pᴀssage where Dreamcatcher’s hero Jonesy is trapped in his own memory palace by the alien possessing his body.

Over 20 years have pᴀssed since the first take on this story and a modern director (like Osgood Perkins or Mike Flanagan) could pare down the sprawling book and make a tense horror ride. Since pretty much everything penned by King is being remade, it would be rude to overlook Dreamcatcher.

Source: Box Office Mojo, Rotten Tomatoes, The Kingcast