The Doctor is in... trouble.
The Stephen King adaptation Doctor Sleep, which functions as a direct sequel to Stanley
Kubrick's classic The Shining, tanked at the box office over the Veteran's Day weekend.
The only thing resembling a silver lining: it wasn't alone.
The movie, which adapts King's 2013 novel of the same name, arrived in theaters with
a sterling pedigree.
It was directed by Mike Flanagan, who was at the helm of the excellent Gerald's Game,
a Netflix original which ported over another of the master's works to the screen; King
himself gave Doctor Sleep a ringing endorsement, and a great many horror fans consider The
Shining to be among the greatest fright flicks of all time.
"Heeere's Johnny!"
All of these things considered, the story of a now-adult Danny Torrance still coming
to terms with his unique powers - and the harrowing events which took place during his
childhood stay at the Overlook Hotel - was expected to clean up to the tune of $25 to
$30 million dollars domestic.
Shockingly, it came nowhere close to that total, pulling in an absolutely anemic $14.1
million dollars at the stateside box office.
It was a disheartening development for studio Warner Bros., as good reviews and word of
mouth weren't nearly enough to prop up Doctor Sleep.
The movie was kept out of the weekend's top spot by Roland Emmerich's historical drama
Midway, which has received mixed-to-negative critical notices and claimed victory with
a $17.5 million haul, which itself is not exactly impressive.
Considering that September's It: Chapter Two underperformed pretty severely for the studio
compared with its 2017 predecessor, the failure of Doctor Sleep could be indicative of a trend:
the beginning of the end of the King Renaissance, which has seen such properties as The Mist,
Mr. Mercedes, Pet Sematary, and In the Tall Grass successfully adapted for screens large
and small in just the last few years.
A slew of additional King adaptations are currently in the works, including television
series based on The Stand and Lisey's Story, and feature films based on Salem's Lot, The
Long Walk, and From a Buick 8.
It should be said that Doctor Sleep might have had a bit more success if moviegoers
hadn't inexplicably decided to stay away from the theater altogether over the weekend.
A little quick math reveals that the top two movies of Veterans' Day weekend 2019 only
managed about a $32 million dollar domestic haul, and when we compare and contrast with
the same weekend in recent years, the difference is downright eye-popping.
Consider that during the same frame in 2018, Universal and Illumination's animated feature
The Grinch topped the box office with a whopping $67.6 million gross, more than twice the total
that Doctor Sleep and Midway combined for.
The Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody came in second during that frame with $31.2
million, a respectable total that this year's top two just barely managed to eclipse.
In 2017, the top spot went to Thor: Ragnarok with a $57.1 million haul, and the second
and third spots were filled by Daddy's Home 2 with $29.7 million, and Murder on the Orient
Express with $28.7 million.
It's plain to see that in each of the last two years, audiences were all about heading
out to the multiplex over the Veteran's Day weekend, and that this year, that trend hit
a brick wall.
As noted by The Hollywood Reporter, even Paul Dergarabedian of Comscore - an analytics company
which provides marketing data to media and advertising firms-— remarked that this past
weekend, quote, "was like some weird alternative box-office universe."
Unfortunately, it was one in which Doctor Sleep, by most accounts a very good film and
a very worthy sequel to The Shining, found itself stuck.
Hopefully, the flick's jaw-droppingly weak performance will turn out to be a fluke, as
year-to-date box office revenue is trailing significantly behind last year despite the
stunning success of flicks like Joker - which is now the most profitable comic book movie
ever - and Avengers: Endgame, which is simply the highest-grossing film in history.
With such potential smashes as Frozen II and Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker
still to come, it's certainly not too late for 2019 to turn it around - but as far as
Doctor Sleep goes, we're calling the time, because the patient has no pulse.
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