Before Stephen King's 2002 ghost miniseries Rose Red came to fruition, the horror master almost ended up remaking 1963 classic The Haunting. It's safe to say there are few names as big in the world of horror as King. Similarly, there are few horror sub-genres more celebrated than movies about ghosts and paranormal phenomena. King doing a haunted house movie should've been a slam dunk sure bet, but surprisingly, that's not how it worked out, even when combined with the prospect of his adapting a past horror hit.
While King's The Shining was technically set in a haunted location, its story was about so much more than just encounters of the spooky variety. The Haunting, based on Shirley Jackson's novel The Haunting of Hill House and directed by Robert Wise, is perhaps the best haunted house movie of all time, and an absolute master class in how one doesn't necessarily need crazy special effects to scare the hell out of an audience.
Stephen King and The Haunting seem like a possible match made in heaven, but unfortunately their union never came to be. King did eventually make Rose Red instead though, and one project did indeed lead to the other.
Stephen King's Rose Red Was Originally A Remake Of The Haunting
In the late 1990s, Stephen King had a lively chat with iconic director Steven Spielberg. The talk consisted of the two men swapping ghost stories, and trading ideas concerning Spielberg's desire to make a frightening ghost movie. This actually makes a lot of sense, as Spielberg had previously tried to recruit King to write Poltergeist, one of the best ghost movies ever made. King was interested, but issues with prompt communication prevented the team-up. Eventually, King and Spielberg decided to use The Haunting of Hill House, as well as The Haunting 1963, as the foundation of their new potential movie plan.
Unfortunately, King and Spielberg just didn't gel creatively, with the two extremely exacting artists not able to reach agreement on what exactly their ghost movie needed to be. The duo parted ways, with Spielberg ultimately producing the widely panned 1999 remake of The Haunting, and King taking his ideas for the project and forming them into Rose Red. Rose Red wasn't a critical darling, but it did monster ratings, and contains some genuinely creepy and tense moments. Of the two projects, Rose Red is the better watch, although it's a bit too long for its own good, running over four hours. Still, one wonders what might've come about had Spielberg and King stuck it out and come to terms.