3 Stephen King Movies Are Dominating HBO Max After Welcome To Derry’s Release (& He Called One A “Train Wreck”)

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The first two episodes of Welcome to Derry are now available, and critics are calling it both scary and visually impressive. The show expands on the backstory introduced in It: Chapter 2, particularly the Native American legends and rituals used to combat the monster. It takes viewers to the cursed town of Derry, Maine, decades before the events of the original It and its sequel.

The new show Welcome to Derry is off to a strong start, and that’s boosted the popularity of the movies it’s based on – IT and IT: Chapter 2 – which are now both in the top 10 on HBO’s streaming list. But surprisingly, Stephen King’s movie Dreamcatcher is also trending. King himself has openly admitted he doesn’t like the book it’s based on, explaining he wrote it while heavily medicated with Oxycontin and struggling with physical pain, and considers it one of his weaker works.

Dreamcatcher Absolutely Loses The Plot

Okay, let me tell you about Dreamcatcher. This 2003 film… well, it’s a bit of a mess. It follows four childhood friends – Jonesy, Beaver, Pete, and Henry – on their yearly hunting trip in Maine. When they were kids, they stood up for a bullied boy, and that’s when things got weird. They all developed telepathy, which they call “the line.” From there, it just goes downhill, and I mean really downhill – involving things you’d never expect, like… sht weasels. Seriously. Critics weren’t kind, and honestly, it’s not hard to see why. One review I read called it “unspeakably bad,” which is pretty harsh, especially considering it’s based on a Stephen King novel and was directed by Lawrence Kasdan (of The Big Chill) and written by William Goldman (who wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid*). It’s… a choice, let’s put it that way.

Stephen King recently told Time magazine that he doesn’t try to micromanage the film and TV adaptations of his work, explaining that it would be overwhelming. He focuses on finding talented people to work on them, but admits you can never fully predict the final result. He acknowledged that sometimes adaptations go terribly wrong – he specifically mentioned his film Dreamcatcher as an example of that happening.

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2025-11-02 21:10