20 Mind-Blowing Facts You Never Knew About Stephen King
12. He Watches And Keeps All His Dollar-Babies
Stephen King has written a lot of stories, and whilst he has a higher hit rate than a lot of similarly prolific authors, he also has a significantly lower hit rate when it comes to their film adaptations. For every Shining or Shawshank there's a dozen Children Of The Corn sequels (seriously, there's a lot of Children Of The Corn films, who is even watching them at this point?). He's found a way to try and alter those averages.
King offers the rights to his works for cheaper to Castle Rock, a studio named after a fictional location from many of his novels that was set up by Rob Reiner, director of Stand By Me and Misery. But even more charitable than that is his so-called Dollar-Babies, an initiative where he'll sell the rights to short stories to film students for a dollar a piece.
He isn't just helping out those burgeoning directors, however; nor is he saving their friends and family from sitting through yet another poorly-scripted zombie flick they have to pretend to like. King stipulates that he has to be sent the finished product to watch and, if he enjoys them, he puts them on a shelf marked Dollar-Babies.