10 Stephen King Adaptations The Author HATES
7. The Lawnmower Man
King has acknowledged that there have been masterful adaptations of his work and disastrous adaptations. There is one "Stephen King" film, however, that the author simply refuses to accept as an adaptation at all.
Thirty years ago studio New Line went into production on an early-CGI-fuelled virtual reality-themed sci-fi horror from an original script titled Cyber God. At the same time New Line also owned the rights to The Lawnmower Man, King's 1970s story combining pagan folklore and yard work.
Rather than bother trying to turn that oddity into a movie of its own, New Line simply slapped the Lawnmower Man name (and, more importantly, the highly profitable name of "Stephen King") onto Cyber God instead.
King responded with a lawsuit in which he declared, quite accurately, that the film "bore no meaningful resemblance" to his work.
The legal case allowed King to force New Line to change the movie's title from Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man to simply The Lawnmower Man and to remove "based on a story by Stephen King" from the credits and marketing material.
By the time that King's lawsuit had succeeded, though, New Line had already established the link between King and the film in the minds of movie-going audiences.
If people remember anything about The Lawnmower Man these days, it's that it is another bad Stephen King movie. Which undoubtedly continues to annoy the author to this day.