Ewan McGregor to play adult Danny Torrance in Doctor Sleep!
Variety reports that Ewan McGregor has signed on to star as the adult version of The Shining‘s Danny Torrance in the upcoming feature film adaptation of Doctor Sleep. The outlet notes that author Stephen King has given his blessing to McGregor’s casting.
This marks the second time that McGregor will step into the role of an adult version of a literary character, with the arrival of Disney’s Christopher Robin set to happen later this year.
Doctor Sleep is set to be directed by Mike Flanagan, making it his second King adaptation after the acclaimed Gerald’s Game. Warner Bros. will release the movie on January 24, 2020.
Published 36 years after The Shining, Doctor Sleep follows an adult Danny Torrance from the original novel. 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.” There Dan meets 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.
It remains to be seen if this film will serve as a standalone movie that acknowledges the storyline of The Shining or if it will in fact be a sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror classic, which was also distributed by Warner Bros.
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