Bruce Greenwood joins The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep as a doctor

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Bruce Greenwood is a solid addition to any cast, as director Mike Flanagan obviously knows – having worked with Greenwood on the Stephen King adaptation GERALD'S GAME, Flanagan has now cast the actor in his next Stephen King adaptation, DOCTOR SLEEP.

A sequel to King's novel THE SHINING, DOCTOR SLEEP is set decades after the events that took place at the Overlook Hotel. Ewan McGregor is signed on to play the adult Danny Torrance in the film, which will tell the following story: 

On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless—mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and tween Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the “steam” that children with the “shining” produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant “shining” power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.”

Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of hyper-devoted readers of The Shining and wildly satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon.

The cast also includes Kyleigh Curran as Abra Stone, Carl Lumbly as Dick Halloran, Alex Essoe as Wendy Torrance, Rebecca Ferguson as cult leader Rose the Hat, and Zahn McClarnon as her right hand man Crow Daddy. 

Greenwood's character is said to be named Dr. John, which would likely be Dr. John Dalton, "the Stones' family doctor and Dan's closest friend. John doesn't have the shining, but he has seen it being used and knows it exists… and he is ready for the horrifying adventure ahead."

DOCTOR SLEEP is being produced by Trevor Macy and Jon Berg.

I haven't read the DOCTOR SLEEP novel, so I'm not sure how this crazy-sounding story comes off on the page, but I'm very interested in seeing how Flanagan and his cast will bring it to life on the screen.