Doctor Sleep Trailer Breakdown: 10 Things You Need To See

In King's book, Tony is basically just a subconscious manifestation of Danny's shining abilities.

But in Kubrick's film, Tony was the name that young Danny Torrance gave to his ‘imaginary friend’ who allegedly lived inside of his mouth. In reality, Tony was a voice that Danny assumed anytime he was overtaken by his shining abilities, almost as if he was possessed by Tony.

Tony is basically non-existent in King's Doctor Sleep novel. But, thanks to a few clues in this trailer, it seems fairly evident that Tony is going to be back in a big way in this film. First off, Redrum is very much Tony’s word. In the film, he was the one who made Danny scream it and write it on the door in the original film, so it being supernaturally scratched into Danny’s blackboard at the beginning of the trailer certainly feels… purposeful.

To top it off, one of the final shots of the trailer sees Danny sliding across his floor toward that same blackboard with a few obscured words written underneath of 'Redrum'. It’s difficult to make out but the word on the left seems to be ‘baseball’ and the word on the right seems to be... (drumroll, please) Tony.

This leads me to think that Tony could wind up being the primary antagonist of this film. It would be a perfect bridge between the more King-oriented narrative of the Doctor Sleep novel and Kubrick’s original film and would feed into that central conflict of Danny’s whole character.