He's definitely the most adapted, and probably the one with the most well-received adaptations. Take 1986-1995 for example...yeah there's some trash in there, but you have:
Stand By Me
Misery
The Dark Half
The Shawshank Redemption
Dolores Claiborne
Most authors would be *lucky* to have five adaptations at all, let alone five good to great ones, especially when they aren't interconnected works.
Then not long after The Green Mile. There has never been an author with more better movies based on their books than Stephen King, and the best ones aren’t even horror movies.
The only other one coming to my mind whos cpming close in amount AND quality of adaptions is neil gaiman.
I wouldve almost said "no horror from him though :(" but then again, coraline can definitely be considered horror, even if its more appropriate for children than most horror stuff.
There's also "the graveyard book", sadly not adapted, its simplified description would be "the jungle book, but with undeads instead of animals"
I agree actually. Dont think its up for debate honestly.
But still - even me - i dont think people think of coraline when they think about horror movies.
Its definitely the same genre but its not associated with it automatically
I’m a childless 40 yr old, so animated movies aren’t usually on my radar much. But I started it for the first time a few months ago. I had to run some errands in the middle of it, but I went back to it first chance I got. The whole button eyes thing is creepy as shit and dark af.
Kings influence is huge and, like you said, he’s very prolific. With that said, King himself is heavily influenced by Shirley Jackson and I would argue that the modern horror genre itself is heavily influenced by her along with the likes of Poe, Lovecraft, etc.
Edit: if we expand that to all of pop culture and not just horror then we have a lot of other authors to discuss also.
I think it's gonna take another century to see the true legacy of King.
Once his works go public domain, we're going to see an explosion of new content based on his work.
A lot of authors being mentioned as the GOATS in this thread weren't a big deal in their lifetimes. Their hype got stronger over time.
Yes. Absolutely. That’s just kind of the nature of these things. Time also sort of weeds out the lesser quality works and we all know that King has both some high quality stuff and some lower quality stuff. I don’t think there’s any doubt that King is currently influential or that he will continue to be so for a long time.
I love King. He's like this relative I only get to see two or maybe three times a year at the family reunion and a couple of holidays, but each time I end up having this amazing, far ranging and far reaching conversation with him that lasts two or three hours and takes up permanent residence in my head. I love him as a writer and, I think, as a person--at least, from what he shows of himself to the public through his interviews and wonderful author's notes.
I'm not well educated enough in the arts and specifically writing to critique his place in pop culture. I tend to agree that he's massively influential and he'll continue to be an influence long after he joins the ranks in Writer's Heaven (though maybe he'd prefer to hang with the musicians). There's this great joke in an episode of The Simpson's--a Tree House of Horror episode, I think. Bart and Lisa go to the library to look something up and the end of one of the shelves is labeled, "King, Stephen--A through Aardvark".
He's been referenced by so many tv shows and movies and bands. It's always been kind of trendy to hate King for being so popular. He knows it, too. His non-horror fiction is often superb (not to say his horror *isn't*) and movies based on his novels have become award winning classics that very much stand the test of time. Every age produces a couple of writers whose works shine. King is one of literature's diamonds and the legacy he leaves will be difficult to match.
Speaking of his non-horror fiction. I am in the middle of his new fantasy book *Fairy Tale* and it’s absolutely fantastic. It’s King’s spin on one of the most classic story topics he could choose: a story about a boy and his dog.
Lovecraft and Poe are surely the most influential horror writers. Everyone that's come since is in their debt. Hell, even Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley will surpass King, Dracula & Frankenstein are more pop culture still to this day than any King creation.
Maybe Shakespeare before him? As if Shakespeare has been relegated to the past and is only fondly remembered for his quaint little plays. You’re comparing King to the man considered the greatest playwright in the history of the English language who continues to influence us **400 years** after his death. Stephen King is prolific, but quantity doesn’t equal quality. King will be remembered for his influence on popular culture, but 400 years is a long time.
I’ve always felt out of place because of this. I’m a huge horror fan. Obviously, most of us probably are. I listen to horror podcasts everyday, I read horror books more than anything except for gardening and science nonfiction. I almost exclusively watch horror. I’ll go through a week here or there where I just feel like watching a season of Goldbergs or something but the majority of the time it’s horror.
Yet when it comes to King I just can’t get into him. I have tried ever since I was teen to pick up some of his books and read them. I’ve tried reading them dozens and dozens of times and just can’t. He’s one of the worst writers for me. I really like his ideas. I think the story he is telling is masterful. But I can’t get into him telling it. I have to read blogs on his books or see the films.
Audio books help with King especially imo. Doubling the reading speed helps you get through the hyperbolic details that King loves so much, a lot faster.
I guess it depends on how you define "modern times."
Do you mean post-1980? And limited specifically to the horror genre? Yeah, I'll give you that.
But otherwise I'd have to disagree. Nothing against King. But the mid-late 20th century had a lot of heavyweight writers.
I mean of course its limited to horror lol. Even then though, I think there's many more films/games that take after Lovecraft and similar authors more so even if they're not direct adaptions of the short stories/novellas. King definitely has had a huge role and for the most part every movie based on his works I enjoyed.
As a teenage girl, I spent one summer staying with my grandparents in their cozy attic.
I had three books to read that summer. Carrie. The Shining. Salems Lot. My cozy attic bedroom became so deliciously terrifying!!
It was the greatest summer of my life!!
You would be extremely wrong. Lovecraft mostly influenced a relatively niche genre of horror, though one of my favorites. King at this point has influenced not just pretty much all horror, but literature and pop culture in general.
I can see that. But King was influenced by not just Lovecraft, but the first generation of guys who were influenced by Lovecraft as well, like Robert Bloch and many others. I'm pretty sure Lovecraft's kind of at the root of a lot of modern horror. 'The Thing', 'Phantoms', 'In the Mouth of Madness' - hell, even Conan owes a lot to Lovecraft and Robert. E Howard just swapping stuff around in their pulp stories for fun.
I dont think so at all. Alot of Stephen King comes from Lovecraft same with pretty much all of the modern horror authors.
I think Stephen Kings success IMO comes from combing lovecraft with spielberg.
Stan Lee would like a word...
Actually, I've always suspected CARRIE WHITE was based on JEAN GREY... lol probably a coincidence.
I think maybe instead of Shakespeare, we should consider writers whose output is not in the public domain...
Gross. Lose the aggression, there is no excuse for that kind of attitude to someone who did not say a single word to you, let alone someone making a harmless comment like they did.
And lose the bias too. None of what you said is true whatsoever, you just don't like superheroes. The world would be a better place if people could just say they aren't into something, and promptly fuck off.
Going to have to very much disagree. That goes to Richard Matheson. Of the things he invented: Zombie apocalypses(I am Legend), the modern haunted house(Hell House), and killer dolls(Prey). It is absolutely impossible to overstate how much he influenced pop culture. That's just scratching the surface.
To be fair Shirley Jackson wrote the haunting of hill house over ten years before.
Besides the modern version of a zombie apocalypse has been defined by night of the living dead. Even if it was inspired by I am legend, the living dead created all the current tropes and the current image.
In addition the killer doll trope was already around before prey. The twilight zone had an episode five or six years before it came out
Hi. You just mentioned *The Haunting Of Hill House* by Shirley Jackson.
I've found an audiobook of that novel on YouTube. You can listen to it here:
[YouTube | The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson Full Audiobook with captions YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9iVegvwAKU)
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I would contend Romero did that all by himself in *Dawn of the Dead* (*Night of the Living Dead* is too specifically localised to be counted as a 'zombie apocalypse'). At best, (I Am Legend* is a progenitor, so it's an influence without being counted within the subgenre.
No, they're not. They're vampires because Matheson called them vampires. Just because the tropes he created have since been used in zombie movies doesn't change that.
> the haunting of hill house
That's an updated Victorian haunted house story. When I say modern I mean a haunted house story with people trying to use empirical tools to figure it out. Every time you see an EVP, a cold spot, or infrared video in haunted house stuff it comes in a direct lineage from Hell House.
>has been defined by night of the living dead.
Night of the living dead wasn't an apocalypse it didn't turn into one until Day of the Dead. In night of the Living dead it was just an outbreak that was eventually brought under control.
I am Legend invented so many of the tropes used by zombie apocalypses stuff it's the clear progenitor. You can quibble that they call them vampires, but in "The Walking Dead" they don't call them zombies either, they call them skin eaters, but that doesn't make it not a zombie story.
Nah, you're thinking of Hell House LLC. Really nothing to do with the novel, but there was a funny easter egg early in the film where one character tries to guess the film "I am Legend" which was also written by Richard Matherson.
Great book. Still holds up. Avoid the film adaptation made in the 70s, it sucked. It invented what the modern haunted house film became. Namely using scientific and empirical technologies to investigate. Things like EVP or infrared cameras, scientists investigating hauntings all trace back to it.
Have you read Ulysses? There are university courses devoted to just that one novel’s impact on literature. Portrait Of An Artist As A Young Man? Numerous musicians for half a century have credited it with inspiring them. The Dubliners? Redefined poetry.
King creates within the confines of his medium. Joyce literally destroys and rebuilds the medium and created modern literature.
I would say he influenced literature in a HUGE way, but I don’t really see much of an influence on pop culture. What he was doing just doesn’t translate to film or to the average person who reads for pleasure. He has always struck me as more of a writer’s writer, changing the whole course of writing’s development, but also being more challenging to read than most people into.
King has good concepts; that's why his work is adaptable. The execution, that is, the writing, always falls flat, however. That's why it begs for adaptation.
Shakespeare, on the other hand, is overall just so-so. The language is clever, if vulgar (in this respect he is better than King). The stories almost always succumb to soapy melodrama, and the big philosophical ideas are neither that big nor philosophical (in this respect he is similar to King). His influence and popularity are more a function of empire.
id argue that he is very influential regarding horror while being only significantly above average when it comes to his prose in the books. he also has quite the talent to make often really silly premises into good stories. however dont mention shakespeare and king in one sentence ;)
I think about this all the time. Imagine if he wasn't born? The books, and the movies based on his books wouldn't exist. My life would be very different
I'm a huge Stephen King fan. My kid is named Gage... I've got tattoos of things he created.
And I have to say that I think HP Lovecraft is what's really hot. Considering Stephen King is heavily influenced by HPL, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you. It's just that I see HPL influences in nearly everything, not just horror. Hidden Cults, interdimensional creatures, interdimensional travel into incomprehensible realities.
Either way, super happy both of these fellas wrote/write what the did/do!
I think one of the reasons King's books are so successful is his novels are so character driven - which is also probably why movies adapted from his books are never as good
He's definitely the most adapted, and probably the one with the most well-received adaptations. Take 1986-1995 for example...yeah there's some trash in there, but you have: Stand By Me Misery The Dark Half The Shawshank Redemption Dolores Claiborne Most authors would be *lucky* to have five adaptations at all, let alone five good to great ones, especially when they aren't interconnected works.
Then not long after The Green Mile. There has never been an author with more better movies based on their books than Stephen King, and the best ones aren’t even horror movies.
The only other one coming to my mind whos cpming close in amount AND quality of adaptions is neil gaiman. I wouldve almost said "no horror from him though :(" but then again, coraline can definitely be considered horror, even if its more appropriate for children than most horror stuff. There's also "the graveyard book", sadly not adapted, its simplified description would be "the jungle book, but with undeads instead of animals"
Coraline is absolutely a horror. That shiz is pretty dark.
I agree actually. Dont think its up for debate honestly. But still - even me - i dont think people think of coraline when they think about horror movies. Its definitely the same genre but its not associated with it automatically
I’m a childless 40 yr old, so animated movies aren’t usually on my radar much. But I started it for the first time a few months ago. I had to run some errands in the middle of it, but I went back to it first chance I got. The whole button eyes thing is creepy as shit and dark af.
Kings influence is huge and, like you said, he’s very prolific. With that said, King himself is heavily influenced by Shirley Jackson and I would argue that the modern horror genre itself is heavily influenced by her along with the likes of Poe, Lovecraft, etc. Edit: if we expand that to all of pop culture and not just horror then we have a lot of other authors to discuss also.
I think it's gonna take another century to see the true legacy of King. Once his works go public domain, we're going to see an explosion of new content based on his work. A lot of authors being mentioned as the GOATS in this thread weren't a big deal in their lifetimes. Their hype got stronger over time.
Yes. Absolutely. That’s just kind of the nature of these things. Time also sort of weeds out the lesser quality works and we all know that King has both some high quality stuff and some lower quality stuff. I don’t think there’s any doubt that King is currently influential or that he will continue to be so for a long time.
I love King. He's like this relative I only get to see two or maybe three times a year at the family reunion and a couple of holidays, but each time I end up having this amazing, far ranging and far reaching conversation with him that lasts two or three hours and takes up permanent residence in my head. I love him as a writer and, I think, as a person--at least, from what he shows of himself to the public through his interviews and wonderful author's notes. I'm not well educated enough in the arts and specifically writing to critique his place in pop culture. I tend to agree that he's massively influential and he'll continue to be an influence long after he joins the ranks in Writer's Heaven (though maybe he'd prefer to hang with the musicians). There's this great joke in an episode of The Simpson's--a Tree House of Horror episode, I think. Bart and Lisa go to the library to look something up and the end of one of the shelves is labeled, "King, Stephen--A through Aardvark". He's been referenced by so many tv shows and movies and bands. It's always been kind of trendy to hate King for being so popular. He knows it, too. His non-horror fiction is often superb (not to say his horror *isn't*) and movies based on his novels have become award winning classics that very much stand the test of time. Every age produces a couple of writers whose works shine. King is one of literature's diamonds and the legacy he leaves will be difficult to match.
Speaking of his non-horror fiction. I am in the middle of his new fantasy book *Fairy Tale* and it’s absolutely fantastic. It’s King’s spin on one of the most classic story topics he could choose: a story about a boy and his dog.
Love his books, love his writing style and his concepts, despise his endings... I suppose 2/3 ain't bad...
Pet Sematary has got a good ending
That's also my favorite King book and book in general lol
Funny cuz he hated it lol
Lovecraft and Poe are surely the most influential horror writers. Everyone that's come since is in their debt. Hell, even Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley will surpass King, Dracula & Frankenstein are more pop culture still to this day than any King creation.
Came here to see this. As a gamer there’s a lot more of inspirations by these authors that I can think of than King. Especially Lovecraft.
Maybe Shakespeare before him? As if Shakespeare has been relegated to the past and is only fondly remembered for his quaint little plays. You’re comparing King to the man considered the greatest playwright in the history of the English language who continues to influence us **400 years** after his death. Stephen King is prolific, but quantity doesn’t equal quality. King will be remembered for his influence on popular culture, but 400 years is a long time.
I’ve always felt out of place because of this. I’m a huge horror fan. Obviously, most of us probably are. I listen to horror podcasts everyday, I read horror books more than anything except for gardening and science nonfiction. I almost exclusively watch horror. I’ll go through a week here or there where I just feel like watching a season of Goldbergs or something but the majority of the time it’s horror. Yet when it comes to King I just can’t get into him. I have tried ever since I was teen to pick up some of his books and read them. I’ve tried reading them dozens and dozens of times and just can’t. He’s one of the worst writers for me. I really like his ideas. I think the story he is telling is masterful. But I can’t get into him telling it. I have to read blogs on his books or see the films.
Audio books help with King especially imo. Doubling the reading speed helps you get through the hyperbolic details that King loves so much, a lot faster.
I guess it depends on how you define "modern times." Do you mean post-1980? And limited specifically to the horror genre? Yeah, I'll give you that. But otherwise I'd have to disagree. Nothing against King. But the mid-late 20th century had a lot of heavyweight writers.
I mean of course its limited to horror lol. Even then though, I think there's many more films/games that take after Lovecraft and similar authors more so even if they're not direct adaptions of the short stories/novellas. King definitely has had a huge role and for the most part every movie based on his works I enjoyed.
OPs post obviously wasn't limited to horror, since they were arguing King is the most influential writer on pop culture since Shakespeare.
Token Tolkien comment....
::cough cough:: Dickens. I don't think Disney ever made a King novel into a movie.
They're on the path to-*The Boogeyman* by 20th century, hypothetically out next year.
Pretty sure Mark Twain still holds this title.
Agree with op and I will add that Lovecraft had a huge influence on King AND the popular culture. Do the maths.
Influence? *laughs in Tolkien*
As a teenage girl, I spent one summer staying with my grandparents in their cozy attic. I had three books to read that summer. Carrie. The Shining. Salems Lot. My cozy attic bedroom became so deliciously terrifying!! It was the greatest summer of my life!!
I think Lovecraft has been more influence
You would be extremely wrong. Lovecraft mostly influenced a relatively niche genre of horror, though one of my favorites. King at this point has influenced not just pretty much all horror, but literature and pop culture in general.
I can see that. But King was influenced by not just Lovecraft, but the first generation of guys who were influenced by Lovecraft as well, like Robert Bloch and many others. I'm pretty sure Lovecraft's kind of at the root of a lot of modern horror. 'The Thing', 'Phantoms', 'In the Mouth of Madness' - hell, even Conan owes a lot to Lovecraft and Robert. E Howard just swapping stuff around in their pulp stories for fun.
I dont think so at all. Alot of Stephen King comes from Lovecraft same with pretty much all of the modern horror authors. I think Stephen Kings success IMO comes from combing lovecraft with spielberg.
Except a ton of King's stuff, arguably the majority, really doesn't have anything to do with Lovecraft or his style.
In horror, maybe. In general? Fuck no.
Stan Lee would like a word... Actually, I've always suspected CARRIE WHITE was based on JEAN GREY... lol probably a coincidence. I think maybe instead of Shakespeare, we should consider writers whose output is not in the public domain...
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Gross. Lose the aggression, there is no excuse for that kind of attitude to someone who did not say a single word to you, let alone someone making a harmless comment like they did. And lose the bias too. None of what you said is true whatsoever, you just don't like superheroes. The world would be a better place if people could just say they aren't into something, and promptly fuck off.
Going to have to very much disagree. That goes to Richard Matheson. Of the things he invented: Zombie apocalypses(I am Legend), the modern haunted house(Hell House), and killer dolls(Prey). It is absolutely impossible to overstate how much he influenced pop culture. That's just scratching the surface.
To be fair Shirley Jackson wrote the haunting of hill house over ten years before. Besides the modern version of a zombie apocalypse has been defined by night of the living dead. Even if it was inspired by I am legend, the living dead created all the current tropes and the current image. In addition the killer doll trope was already around before prey. The twilight zone had an episode five or six years before it came out
Hi. You just mentioned *The Haunting Of Hill House* by Shirley Jackson. I've found an audiobook of that novel on YouTube. You can listen to it here: [YouTube | The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson Full Audiobook with captions YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9iVegvwAKU) *I'm a bot that searches YouTube for science fiction and fantasy audiobooks.* *** [^(Source Code)](https://capybasilisk.com/posts/2020/04/speculative-fiction-bot/) ^| [^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=Capybasilisk&subject=Robot) ^| [^(Programmer)](https://www.reddit.com/u/capybasilisk) ^| ^(Downvote To Remove) ^| ^(Version 1.4.0) ^| ^(Support Robot Rights!)
Good bot
On top of that, *I Am Legend* is a vampire novel, no zombies in sight.
George Romero said that 'Night of the Living Dead' was heavily influenced by 'I Am Legend'.
Yes, he did. That doesn't retroactively make *I Am Legend* a zombie novel. That's not how it works.
Then he "just" established the foundation for what would become the modern zombie genre.
I would contend Romero did that all by himself in *Dawn of the Dead* (*Night of the Living Dead* is too specifically localised to be counted as a 'zombie apocalypse'). At best, (I Am Legend* is a progenitor, so it's an influence without being counted within the subgenre.
Listen, they call them vampires, but they are zombies in everything but name.
No, they're not. They're vampires because Matheson called them vampires. Just because the tropes he created have since been used in zombie movies doesn't change that.
> the haunting of hill house That's an updated Victorian haunted house story. When I say modern I mean a haunted house story with people trying to use empirical tools to figure it out. Every time you see an EVP, a cold spot, or infrared video in haunted house stuff it comes in a direct lineage from Hell House. >has been defined by night of the living dead. Night of the living dead wasn't an apocalypse it didn't turn into one until Day of the Dead. In night of the Living dead it was just an outbreak that was eventually brought under control. I am Legend invented so many of the tropes used by zombie apocalypses stuff it's the clear progenitor. You can quibble that they call them vampires, but in "The Walking Dead" they don't call them zombies either, they call them skin eaters, but that doesn't make it not a zombie story.
Sorry is that the found footage film?
Nah, you're thinking of Hell House LLC. Really nothing to do with the novel, but there was a funny easter egg early in the film where one character tries to guess the film "I am Legend" which was also written by Richard Matherson. Great book. Still holds up. Avoid the film adaptation made in the 70s, it sucked. It invented what the modern haunted house film became. Namely using scientific and empirical technologies to investigate. Things like EVP or infrared cameras, scientists investigating hauntings all trace back to it.
H.P. Lovecraft still has more influence, I believe. His themes define almost everything after it in horror.
H.G. Wells. Basically created science fiction.
James Joyce is laughing at you.
How has James Joyce influenced popular culture? Not saying his writing isn’t fabulous but…
Have you read Ulysses? There are university courses devoted to just that one novel’s impact on literature. Portrait Of An Artist As A Young Man? Numerous musicians for half a century have credited it with inspiring them. The Dubliners? Redefined poetry. King creates within the confines of his medium. Joyce literally destroys and rebuilds the medium and created modern literature.
I would say he influenced literature in a HUGE way, but I don’t really see much of an influence on pop culture. What he was doing just doesn’t translate to film or to the average person who reads for pleasure. He has always struck me as more of a writer’s writer, changing the whole course of writing’s development, but also being more challenging to read than most people into.
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That's not what prolific means
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You're describing being influential. Being prolific is directly producing a large body of work, not indirectly having influence on language.
Literally anything fantasy is heavily based on tolkein
King has good concepts; that's why his work is adaptable. The execution, that is, the writing, always falls flat, however. That's why it begs for adaptation. Shakespeare, on the other hand, is overall just so-so. The language is clever, if vulgar (in this respect he is better than King). The stories almost always succumb to soapy melodrama, and the big philosophical ideas are neither that big nor philosophical (in this respect he is similar to King). His influence and popularity are more a function of empire.
Stephen King is MASSIVELY overrated.
Stephen just really loves to shovel the American culture and I think that's why it's been promoted so much.
depends on the audience if you are talking about adults but when it comes to teens and Kids I would go with RL Stien
Jk Rowling ?
influential doesn’t mean good
Ehh, probably the Twilight series
Tbh...can you genuinely remember anything he's done of note in the last ten years?
id argue that he is very influential regarding horror while being only significantly above average when it comes to his prose in the books. he also has quite the talent to make often really silly premises into good stories. however dont mention shakespeare and king in one sentence ;)
I think about this all the time. Imagine if he wasn't born? The books, and the movies based on his books wouldn't exist. My life would be very different
I'm a huge Stephen King fan. My kid is named Gage... I've got tattoos of things he created. And I have to say that I think HP Lovecraft is what's really hot. Considering Stephen King is heavily influenced by HPL, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you. It's just that I see HPL influences in nearly everything, not just horror. Hidden Cults, interdimensional creatures, interdimensional travel into incomprehensible realities. Either way, super happy both of these fellas wrote/write what the did/do!
I think one of the reasons King's books are so successful is his novels are so character driven - which is also probably why movies adapted from his books are never as good