Stephen King has had more movie and television adaptations of his work than any other novelist. The man is easily one of the greatest storytellers of our time and his spectrum of work is so varied and so enormous, it's easy to understand his mass appeal. Millions of people buy his books, and millions of people watch the films based on these books. King can create a world and put you, as a reader, right there in it. Among the many adaptations, there are plenty of good, and even positively great films and TV movies/minseries; Carrie, Misery and Salem's Lot to name but a few. Perhaps it is having such high caliber screenwriters and directors attached to projects like this that make them such a success, or the level of attention paid to King's source work, or maybe it's just the fact that some of his stories are simply better than others, and some books are just better-suited for the big screen. Either way, for the number of great adaptations, there are just as many bad ones to rival them. The disappointment in these weaker films can spout from any number of reasons. Obviously the main cause of disappointment of a film adaptation is that it doesn't live up to it's source material. Sometimes, no matter how good the film might be in it's own right, it will never compare to the book it's based on, and this so often comes down to individual opinions and tastes. Another reason for disappointment could be that, despite King's original story not being one of his stronger efforts, you thought, "Maaybe with the right talent attached, a great re-imagining could result in the form of a film." It's happened before. Good books have gone on to make great movies when the person adapting it decided to make some creative changes to the story. Just look at The Shining. A terrific book, sure. King had lots of great ideas, and it's a very interesting read, but the film adaptation is what truly made the tale a classic. In this case, Kubrick was the right man to take the book and make a stronger film. These things can happen, and sometimes we have pre-conceived notions about how excellent a film is going to be, based on certain factors like the cast and crew involved. Hell, sometimes we even have pre-conceived notions based on nothing but the basic premise of the film. There are lots of reasons why we would get our hopes up for a Stephen King film adaptation, and so, once in a while, we're going to be disappointed. Here's a selection of such films, each with their own set of disappointments...