10 Worst Stephen King Film Adaptations
1. The Lawnmower Man
Have you ever read the Lawnmower Man? It's a great little story, brief and mental - maybe not one of King's best, but a bit of fun all the same.
It is in no way related to whatever this film is, bar the name. Stephen King successfully sued the producers for attaching his name to the film and on his website, it is not listed in the adaptations of his work. Let that sink in.
It began life as another project altogether - Cyber God. The studio owned the rights to King's story and decided to combine elements in an attempt to boost interest. The basic element - a man hires a simple minded gardener to mow his lawn is tangentially present but there ends the similarities. In the novel, the lawnmower man is a Satyr, worship ping the God Pan and sacrificing the homeowner Harold Parkette to appease him. In the movie, Dr. Angelo wants to upgrade the hapless gardener to see what will happen. The man moves into a completely virtual world and the movie devolves into the now infamously poor CGI.
To be fair, the idea of the movie isn't bad. There is a measure of threat in Jobe's actions. It's just that it has absolutely nothing to do with King's story. The movie was a clear example of the studio capitalizing on a famous name - proved by the fact that they defied a court injunction to remove his name and it was still released as Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man. $2.5million in fines later, it probably felt like that gamble didn't pay off.