‘Walking Dead’ producer Glen Mazzara may be in talks to write ‘The Shining’ prequel

A year after floating a prequel to Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining, Warner Bros is apparently revisiting the idea, and The Walking Dead scribe and producer Glen Mazzara may be in talks to write it. Deadline reports that Mazzara is being considered for The Overlook Hotel, which would explore events in the hotel sometime before the Torrance family’s arrival, though little else is known about it. While the Los Angeles Times first revealed that Warner Bros was tentatively considering a prequel in June of 2012, we’ve heard barely anything since then.

Mazzara’s Walking Dead is a runaway hit, but following Kubrick’s Shining is a risky move: the film, universally regarded as a classic, maintains an intense and dedicated fan base. It wouldn’t, however, be the first attempt to build on the original story. Stephen King, who wrote the 1977 novel upon which The Shining was based, will be publishing a sequel to it later this year: Doctor Sleep will follow the life of Danny Torrance after his time at the Overlook. King has frequently voiced his dislike of Kubrick’s adaptation, creating his own more faithful version as a TV mini-series in 1997. The talks between Mazzara and Warner Bros seem tentative, so while it would certainly be interesting to see his take on the Overlook Hotel’s bloody past, we wouldn’t expect to see anything for a while yet.