Credit: Carrie/United Artists
Stephen King’s name has long been attached to horror and similarly thrilling pieces of work, but all of Stephen King’s works came from original books the author has created. While decades ago, Stephen King’s name was of relevance, that hasn’t changed today with shows like Castle Rock and various iterations of his other work that have already been released as other media outside of novels. From original novels to movie adaptations, television series, and even Broadway and other theater adaptations, Stephen King has remained a dominant force in the world of original horror and thriller concepts. Below we’ve detailed the career of Stephen King and his different pieces of work, but mostly one of his most notable, Carrie, and the various forms the Stephen King novel has taken over the years.
Credit: The Green Mile/Castle Rock
Stephen King
While Stephen King’s Carrie novel was released in 1974, he had released work previously but nothing along the lines of what was his first supernatural novel with Carrie. Stephen King has long been noted as The King of Horror with his unique use of mixed genres between horror, suspense, science fiction, supernatural and more. Before Carrie, Stephen King was noted for various short stories and minor works for magazines and similar outlets.
Under his name, Stephen King has released 56 novels, with others released under his pen name of Richard Bachman, but the adaptation of Stephen King’s work is more often under that name than that of his pen name. Most of Stephen King’s work has been featured in Maine, and the series of Castle Rock has added the various lore from Stephen King’s works and added them together into something new and unique. On top of the insane amount of literature that Stephen King has written, a large portion of them have been adapted into works of television and mostly movies, as well as several times over, and The King of Horror has even acted in them.
Credit: Carrie/United Artists
Stephen King’s Carrie
Carrie, Stephen King’s first published novel, follows a girl from a highly religious household that goes from getting her period for the first time to destroying her town and getting her revenge on those that wronged her with her, also new telekinetic abilities. While King was weary of Carrie, he was given praise as if he was a veteran novelist, although it was his debut published novel. To much surprise, Carrie was only 199 pages, which, compared to regular novels and future Stephen King work, is quite a short amount for such a highly praised novel.
Today Stephen King has been praised for his use of various genres, but the novel Carrie was riveting in the supernatural sense of such a new writer to the realm of published works as a respected writer in such genres. Stephen King originally had the ending of Carrie have the character grow demon horns and destroy an airplane above her in the sky. Still, he was convinced to change the novel into a more subtle ending, likely saving the author’s future career. There have, however, been several different iterations of Stephen King’s first novel Carrie since its release in 1974.
Credit: Carrie/United Artists
Various Other Forms of Carrie
Outside of the original novel of Carrie, the first adaptation after it was a movie with a theatrical release in 1976. Since then, several adaptations from Broadway, a television movie, a sequel to the original film, and two additional Carrie remakes have been released. The CW series Riverdale also had a musical episode dedicated entirely to Carrie in which two characters took the role of Carrie for the episode. Still, Riverdale has tended to take its show and adaptations into its own hands.
The first adaptation, the 1976 Carrie movie, was the first adaptation of Stephen King’s work, although not a surprise as it was his first published novel, but since Carrie was released as a film, the work of Stephen King has been adapted over 100 times. After the first Carrie movie, it wasn’t until 1999 that a sequel to Carrie was released, The Rage: Carrie 2, which was entirely separate from the novel’s story and instead focused on another daughter Carrie’s father had with another woman, also with telekinetic abilities.
In 2002, the second Carrie film adaptation was released, but this time instead of a theatrical release was a made-for-television movie created for NBC with the intent to create a series from it, but no such series ever came to light. However, in 2019, it was announced that FX was working on a limited Carrie series with a trans person or person of color in the lead role, which would be the first time the character was portrayed. The final true adaptation of Carrie that has been released, which would exclude the 2019 Riverdale musical, was the 2013 Carrie film adaptation released in theaters with Chloe Grace Moretz.2013 Carrie film adaptation released in theaters with Chloe Grace Moretz.
