The Incredible Doctor Sleep Detail You Missed
You won't believe the lengths director Mike Flanagan went with his sequel to The Shining.
Upon its big-screen release last Halloween, Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep received a largely positive response. Now while Flanagan’s Ewan McGregor-starring sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining impressed many, you’re likely completely unaware of just how much painstaking detail went into the production of the movie.
As Doctor Sleep hurtled towards its conclusion, audiences saw McGregor’s Danny Torrance returning to the infamous Overlook Hotel for one last stand against Rose the Hat. It’s clear to see that the Overlook Hotel had been meticulously recreated for this follow-up picture, yet it’s amazing to hear the full story of just how director Mike Flanagan was able to do such a stunning job in having the hotel resemble what fans had seen in Kurbick’s 1980 movie.
Deciding that he wanted to physically build the sets for his Overlook Hotel rather than digitally recreate the locale, Flanagan actually studied Stanley Kubrick’s original blueprints from that first film. For the details that Warner Bros. didn’t have on their records, Kubrick’s estate happily offered up any information that they had at their disposal in order to assist the director.
In addition to using those plans, Mike Flanagan studied every miniscule piece of detail from The Shining and made sure that he and his crew used iPads to scour Doctor Sleep’s set and compare each and every element to what had been seen nearly 40 years prior.
There’s no doubting that Mike Flanagan was dedicated to recreating The Shining’s Overlook Hotel in as much detail as humanly possibly – and hopefully you’ll now have a new appreciation for the sequel’s excessive detail once the movie is released on Blu-ray and DVD on February 4th.