20 Things You Didn’t Know About The Green Mile

20. The Serialisation

At the time, original author Stephen King called The Green Mile the single most faithful adaptation of his work, which until that point hadn't always been treated with a vast amount of reverence by Hollywood.

The novel was originally published as six short books, once a month between March and August 1996. For King, the serialised format was a creative challenge - and an impish thumb to the nose of readers who insisted on skipping to the end to see what happens. His mother had been one such - he remembered being twelve and, horrified, catching her holding her place on page 50 of an Agatha Christie mystery while she flipped to the climax to find out whodunnit.

That wouldn't be possible here - in fact, King was still writing as the first volumes were published and had only the vaguest idea how it ended himself.

King made sure to make each of the six instalments a story on its own. Frank Darabont's adaptation, as a single sprawling narrative, elides the serialised format entirely. Today, it would probably have been presented to HBO as a serial, but the television landscape of today is significantly different to the television landscape of twenty years ago…