If you’ve indulged in your fair share of Stephen King novels, chances are you’re used to seeing plenty of changes made to the source material. That’s bound to happen when adapting from one medium to another, and given how much King’s stories tend to unfold internally, it only makes sense. But sometimes, there area changes that are made that don’t really seem to make sense — changes that really could have been avoided or that feel just a tad bit random.
Such a change seemingly occurred with the upcoming movie Pet Sematary. Those who have read the book know that the child to kick the bucket early on is the toddler Gage, who is later resurrected. However, as the second trailer for the film revealed, the filmmakers went a different direction. They instead killed the older sister Ellie. Speaking with EW, author Stephen King reacted to this reveal, and in true King form, he’s completely open to narrative changes for the adaptation.
“It’s something different,” King said. “They did a good job. Boy, I saw all the stuff that came online when people realized that it was Ellie rather than Gage that got run over in the road, and I’m thinking like, ‘Man, these people…’ It’s so nuts.”
RELATED – Check Out First Social Media Reactions To Pet Sematary
I honestly haven’t seen any of the hate from these guys online, but I guess I can see where they’re coming from. Pet Sematary is a book that can definitely benefit from being remade with today’s filmmaking techniques. If there are fans of the book who were looking forward to a stronger adaptation, I can certainly understand their annoyance at not getting a more faithful take. That being said, King assures fans that the movie still ultimately remains faithful.
“You can take Route 301 and go to Tampa, or you could take Route 17 and go to Tampa. But both times, you’re gonna come out at Tampa!” King said. “You know what I’m saying? It didn’t change anything for me. I thought, ‘Okay, I understand why they did it, because it’s maybe easier to work with a zombie when she’s a little girl than a toddler.’”
In the past, the filmmakers expressed the reason behind this change was that they could explore a less-traveled arena of resurrecting a child who could physically attack people. And it seems to have done the trick, at least by Stephen King’s standards.
“It’s f–king great,” King said. “It’s a really good movie. It’s a grown-up, adult kind of movie. It’s not like twelve semi-clad teens get killed in a summer camp.”
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SOURCE: EW