Even though I liked this its hard to not be distracted by the replacement actors for Danny, Jack, Dick and Wendy. And although I think they did a pretty good job with them and their scenes it was just odd and remarkable. But overall definitely worth a watch. I was very into the story.
shareThe only one that truly distracted me was Jack. I wish they had just established early in the film there was a replacement for him like they did with the others because when he does appear, and they're showing him mainly from that one side angle, it was like they'd were trying to put one over on the audience. Other than that, I really liked it.
shareI hear ya and I cant believe that was actually Henry Thomas from E.T.!
shareSame! Had no idea while watching!
sharehttps://whatculture.com/film/8-horror-movie-re-castings-that-were-terrible?page=4
It was a bold strategy to recast one of the most iconic horror movie roles, so you've got to give director Mike Flanagan credit for this one. However, ambition only gets you so far, and replacing Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance is still a dumb move.share
As a sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep was always going to feature returning characters and locations from the original, however nobody expected to see the entire Torrance family recast with actors re-enacting scenes from Kubrick's original.
Of course, it was Henry Thomas who received the short end of the stick, tasked with stepping into the shoes of Jack Torrance. He has a valiant effort too, it's just that his inclusion is so distracting.
The filmmakers have tried their best to make him look and sound as close to Jack Nicholson as possible, but it's impossible to not be taken out of the movie by this wonky impersonation.
Anything - whether it was digital de-aging, a complete CGI composite or a more well known actor stepping into the role - would have no doubt caused issues, but you can't help but think the filmmakers decided on the worst option here.
Yeah they coulda tried to get someone with a creep factor like Brad Douriff.
shareThank god they used real actors.
Making them CGI like Peter Cushing in Rogue One or de-aging Jack Nicholson like in The Irishman would have been terrible.
I agree. I really liked this film but either way as someone who has seen The Shining like 50 times it was inevitable.
shareWhat are you talking about? De-aging Jack Nicholson would have been ideal, which gives you his real voice and acting ability, as well as his real face and body structure (and their associated movements) underneath the age. It's nothing like CGI Peter Cushing for obvious reasons.
You say, "Thank god they used real actors." Jack Nicholson is a real actor, and no one is better suited to play a Jack Nicholson character than Jack Nicholson, again, for obvious reasons. I haven't seen "The Irishman," but de-aged Michael Douglas in the Ant-Man movies was done well enough, certainly a lot better than using a different actor to play the younger version of Hank Pym.
He was probably approached and turned them down. He's retired for one thing and anyway the film wasn't that great so the novel and script won't have been either and it probably felt like a cash grab due to the success of It and Ready Player One anyway.
However they could've used abit of CGI over the actors they had.. well Nicholson anyway as the Shelly Duvall lookalike was close enough.. but Nicholson in The Shining is iconic..the audience knows exactly what he looked like (then again maybe Jack wanted too much cash or just wasn't happy with the idea of it or the idea of a sequel to Kubricks masterpiece)
edit just wiki and found this:
When pressed as to why the filmmakers did not extend the same offer to Jack Nicholson, Macy responded, "With Jack, I knew that they approached him for Ready Player One, and that he seems to be very serious about being retired. I had known that he was supportive [of the sequel] but retired."[16]
Regarding the recast characters, Flanagan explained, "We explored everything, and there were only really two options as I saw it: It was either going to be something that was performed, or something that was digital. And even if we had Nicholson come back, based on the rules of the hotel and how the ghosts appear with respect to their age, he'd be performing the part through a digital avatar." Flanagan said that de-aging and digital actors, while improving rapidly, were still inadequate. "The idea of having a digital Danny Torrance riding a trike five minutes into the movie, that just seemed like we were making a video game at that point. It felt disrespectful." Noting that any solution would be controversial, the director decided that the best approach "was not to do impressions; it was to find actors who would remind us of those iconic performances, without ever tipping into parody... I just want to be able to tilt people's memories toward those original actors, but then let the characters be their own. I want to cast someone to play Dick Hallorann; I don't want to cast someone to play Scatman Crothers."[17] The idea of casting a Nicholson impersonator as Jack was also considered, as was casting a big-name actor associated with or reminiscent of Nicholson, such as Leonardo DiCaprio or Christian Slater. Nicholson was also invited to make a cameo appearance as another character, but declined.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Sleep_(2019_film)
Jack Torrance technically returns for the sequel, as the ghostly bartender that meets Danny Torrance. He is now played by Henry Thomas, who was cast for his resemblance to a young Jack Nicholson. Mike Flanagan admitted that he would have loved nothing more than to get Jack Nicholson to reprise his role, but ultimately thought it best not to, for several understandable reasons. Jack Nicholson has already retired as an actor, and he feels he wouldn't have been able to commit to the role like he did back in 1980, not to mention his memory has deteriorated quite a bit and he would have issues remembering his lines, and he wouldn't want to be a nuisance to the cast and crew. Even if he agreed, his presence alone would have caused the film to go over budget, and that's not even including the extensive CGI effects that would be required to digitally de-age him to make him look like he did back in 1980. Even if Warner Bros. had agreed to fund these necessary costs, Flanagan probably wouldn't have been satisfied with the results. He felt that current technology hadn't advanced far enough for the CGI to convincingly de-age him. Flanagan pointed out a similar issue that occurred with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) where audiences complained that the digital recreation of Peter Cushing, although impressive, was not convincing enough to not take them out of the movie and was ultimately distracting while watching the film. Flanagan didn't want a similar issue to arise for this film, as he wanted audiences to be fully attentive to scenes featuring Jack Torrance and not break suspension of disbelief with unconvincing CGI, and ultimately decided to cast a different actor. Flanagan also realized that it would make psychological sense for Jack to look a little different anyway, as Danny hadn't seen him since he was a child and would have likely mostly forgotten his appearance. Henry Thomas received Jack Nicholson's blessing.