Why do Stephen King novels often translate so poorly to film? via /r/movies

tl;dr: Why are so few Stephen King books good movies?

The Shining, The Shawshank Redemption were a great films. So was Stand By Me. Carrie was a very good one as was Apt Pupil. But, in general King novels haven’t translated that well into film. They range from the lackluster to the awful, and this doesn’t seem to have much to do with the quality of the source material.

Two of my favorite King novels are (surprise, surprise) It and The Stand. The film adaptations of both weren’t terrible, but they weren’t exactly good, either. The Stand miniseries didn’t even come close to encompassing the epic “feel” of the novel nor did It accurately depict how disturbing the book could be at times.

Part of this is obvious, I think. King likes to put a lot of detail into his characters, and thus the behavior of certain characters comes across as odd, superficial or as bad writing when the excised screen play is put to film. And part of it is because King’s novels are often long. The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me were based on novellas, after all. For The Stand series to be properly done, it would probably require 20 – 30 hour long episodes.

Or, is it something else entirely or what else makes some of King’s film adaptations so lackluster?