James Vanderbilt dishes the details on The Shining prequel

When we first heard that Warner had greenlit a prequel to The Shining, alarm bells started ringing that it might just be a cheap cash-in, only for the announcement that Mark Romanek would direct to ease our worries somewhat. Aware that fans and critics alike might still require some convincing, producer James Vanderbilt has revealed some juicy details about the project, stressing that the new story will be "completely its own film".

"You want a real filmmaker like Mark doing it," said Vanderbilt during an interview with Collider. "Honestly I think people will really be excited about it, because it’s not like 20 Years Before The Shining!. I don’t want to give too much away about the story but the way [screenwriter] Glen [Mazzara] cracked it and the way Mark has sort of cracked it, it’s completely its own film, which I think is super smart. It’s not like, ‘When Scatman Crothers was young, he…’ it’s not that."

Entitled Overlook Hotel, the new film takes its inspiration from the prologue Stephen King wrote for the original novel, which was eventually cut from the published book. The story documents the exploits of original owner Bob T. Watson, a retired crook who built the hotel as a place to retire with his family. You can probably guess how well that works out for him. No release date has been confirmed for the film as yet, but production is expected to get underway at some point next year.