10 Stephen King Adaptations The Author HATES

For all that it may now be seen as a classic, at the time The Shining earned Kubrick a Razzie nomination for Worst Director. Six years later there was a second Razzie nod for a director of a Stephen King adaptation and this time the director was, well, Stephen King.

He may be one of the most successful writers of all time, but in his one time behind the camera (adapting his own 1973 short story Trucks) King proved an utter disaster. Maximum Overdrive is clunky, ham-fisted and stiffly acted. He would himself describe his own work as "a moron movie".

In Hollywood's Stephen King, the writer-turned-director explained the absolute car crash of a movie by saying that he was "coked out of my mind all through production and didn't know what I was doing".

He noted that "I didn't get the job because I went to film school. I got the job because I'm Stephen King," which probably explains why the movie doesn't feel even remotely professionally competent.

Maximum Overdrive remains something of an old shame for a writer who has otherwise proved pretty successful at all he has turned his hand to. He has declined to return to the director's chair since.

Still, the film does at least prove that if you really need someone to royally screw up a Stephen King adaptation, you can do no better than calling the man himself!