Ben Stiller In Talks To Star In Ivo Van Hove Stage Adaptation Of Stephen King’s ‘The Shining’
21.03.2022 - 18:43
/ deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: A major new Ivo van Hove stage adaptation of Stephen King’s horror classic The Shining is in the works for a 2023 West End debut, with an A-list creative team in place and Ben Stiller in talks to play the role of the crazed, haunted dad Jack Torrance.
Rehearsals are set to begin in the fall, with London performances targeted for January 2023. An eventual move to Broadway is expected.
Sources tell Deadline that director van Hove, last seen on Broadway pre-pandemic with the reworked West Side Story, will lead the creative team, with Tony winner Simon Stephens (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and, most recently, Morning Sun starring Edie Falco) adapting the King novel. (Stephens also wrote the Sea Wall half of Sea Wall/A Life, with Tom Sturridge starring.)
Deadline first reported about a planned stage adaptation in 2017, and plans for a West End staging continued apace thereafter until the Covid pandemic shutdown of 2020. With the return of live theater, the project is back on track, with Stiller expected to take the role Jack Nicholson played in the 1980 film adaptation.
Producing will be Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender, currently teamed up on Broadway with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Friedman is producing Broadway’s Funny Girl starring Beanie Feldstein, and the recently announced West End production of Jean Cocteau’s The Human Voice, to be directed by van Hove, starring Ruth Wilson.
Sources say the stage play of The Shining will adhere more closely with King’s 1977 book than Stanley Kubrick’s film, which in addition to Nicholson starred Shelley Duvall as Wendy Torrance and Danny Lloyd as Danny Torrance.
The production would mark van Hove’s latest high-profile stage work, following his 2020