Horror icon Stephen King’s short story collection Different Seasons was a change of pace for the author, and despite the book's lack of horror, many of its stories have become critically-acclaimed movie adaptations. Stephen King’s career as a best-selling author began with the release of Carrie in 1974 and, ever since that hugely popular novel became a sensation, the author’s name has been synonymous with horror literature. However, King is not just a horror writer, as proven by the acclaimed short story collection Different Seasons.

Comprised of four novellas, Different Seasons marked a departure from genre writing for King. Where collections like Night Shift, Skeleton Crew, and Nightmares and Dreamscapes saw King focus on horror, fantasy and sci-fi, Different Seasons was (mostly) a more grounded set of novellas from the writer. Despite being an anomaly in King’s canon, the collection received stellar reviews and was the inspiration for some of King’s most well-loved adaptations.

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Different Seasons is notable for being one of King’s least horror-focused collections, with three out of its four stories featuring no fantasy, horror, or sci-fi elements. Despite this, the collection has produced some of his best-loved adaptations such as The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me, as well as the underrated Apt Pupil. Ironically, it is only the unsettling horror-adjacent story 'The Breathing Method' that has not yet been brought to life on screen. However, the recent popularity of King adaptations, prompted by the blockbuster success of It and It: Chapter 2, means that even that tough-to-adapt story currently has a movie version in development.

Apt Pupil

Kurt Dussander looking at something in Apt Pupil

1998’s dark drama Apt Pupil saw now-disgraced director Bryan Singer adapt this story of an exiled Nazi befriending and grooming an American boy who gradually uncovers his dark secret. The darkest of the collection’s stories, Apt Pupil makes for an uncomfortable watch thanks to Ian McKellen and Brad Renfro’s committed performances. Unfortunately, the allegations leveled at Singer and the untimely death of Renfro make Apt Pupil a hard movie to recommend and result in the drama’s unsettling themes taking on a lot of real-world relevance. Still, the movie features one of Renfro’s best performances from his tragically brief career and the actor’s work deserves to be spoken of in the same terms as River Phoenix’s superb Stand By Me performance.

The Shawshank Redemption

Andy and Red sit down and talk in The Shawshank Redemption.

According to writer Stephen King himself, he was once ironically informed by a reader that he didn’t write The Shawshank Redemption while the misguided fan berated him for only authoring dark and horror-centric stories. Indeed, it is easy to understand why the reader had a hard time believing that King was behind this optimistic, poignant story of friendship surviving despite and hope enduring despite decades of brutality and cruelty. An iconic 1994 prison break drama, director Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption is adapted very faithfully from the novella 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.' Perhaps King’s most acclaimed movie adaptation, the moving story that is often listed as one of the best movies ever made despite performing poorly with critics and audiences upon release. With pitch-perfect lead performances from Morgan Freeman and Timothy Robbins as well as a thrilling ending, it is easy to see why The Shawshank Redemption remains so well-loved. Darabont’s other King adaptation The Mist is ironically the bleakest and most brutal movie made from the author’s many dark novels, meaning the director has mined gold from both extremes of the prolific author’s sizable back catalog.

Stand By Me

Stand By Me Original Cast

Based on the novella 'The Body,' 1986’s Rob Reiner dramedy Stand By Me offers a non-horror spin on the ‘50s-set nostalgia King is famous for. It’s still a surprisingly brutal movie, but one whose staggering young cast elevates what could have been a sad story into a coming-of-age masterpiece. A huge influence on the nostalgic dramedy genre in the decades since, Stand By Me’s simple story is less about its plot and much more focused on the characters of its small cast. River Phoenix is phenomenal but there isn’t a weak link between him, Jerry O’Connell, Will Wheaton, and Corey Feldman, and supporting stars John Cusack and Kiefer Sutherland make Stephen King’s Stranger Things-influencing classic one of the author’s best adaptations. Elegiac, poignant, and often surprisingly funny, Stand By Me is an immaculately cast tribute to a misspent youth.

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The Breathing Method

The final story in Different Seasons is a district tonal shift for the collection, but also a return to more familiar territory for King. The offbeat tale 'The Breathing Method' tells the seemingly un-film-able story of a doctor who watches a decapitated woman using the titular trick to deliver her child despite a grisly auto accident seemingly killing her minutes before the baby is born. It’s a strange and strangely moving story and one that seemed impossible to adapt for decades, but much as it may surprise some readers, thanks to Stephen King fever 'The Breathing Method' is reportedly set to receive a movie adaptation in the near future. The Black Phone director/frequent Ethan Hawke collaborator Scott Derrickson will reportedly give it a shot after his adaptation of King's son Joe Hill's story is released this year.

News of Derrickson adapting 'The Breathing Method' was first reported in 2019 and little has been heard since, but there is no reason to believe that the movie has been canceled in the intervening years. King’s work is arguably more popular now than it was even in his ‘80s heyday, with the big and small screen featuring dozens of projects based on his decades of writing. There is no doubt that 'The Breathing Method' is one of the less commercial and more surreal of King’s efforts, but this alone is not enough to ensure that the movie version will flop. After all, It is a sprawling and complex story, and its two-part movie adaptation made over a billion, while 2020’s The Stand miniseries seemed comparatively like a sure thing as a dramatic, post-apocalyptic action-packed story, but flopped with critics. As such, 'The Breathing Method' may soon become another hit adaptation from Stephen King’s Different Seasons, despite its unsettling premise.

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