Trailer, poster released for Mike Flanagan’s The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Director Mike Flanagan took to his Twitter to share the first poster and trailer for his new film DOCTOR SLEEP – which happens to be an adaptation of Stephen King's sequel to THE SHINING. These can be seen below.

The poster only offers the most basic of information, letting people know that a movie called DOCTOR SLEEP will be coming out in November. That alone probably wouldn't mean much to the average movie-goer. But add in the word "Redrum", and I think people are going to have an idea of what this is all about.

The trailer, on the other hand, has much more substance than I was expecting to see five months out from the movie's release.

DOCTOR SLEEP was written and directed by Flanagan, and it stars Ewan McGregor as an adult version of the shining-gifted Danny Torrance. King's book told 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.

In the cast with McGregor are Kyleigh Curran as Abra Stone, Carl Lumbly as Dick Halloran, Alex Essoe as Wendy Torrance, Bruce Greenwood as Danny's friend Dr. John Dalton, Rebecca Ferguson as cult leader Rose the Hat, Zahn McClarnon as her right hand man Crow Daddy, and Jacob Tremblay and Jocelin Donahue in unspecified roles.

DOCTOR SLEEP is heading toward a November 8th release date.