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Why Did Stanley Kubrick Change The Ending Of ‘The Shining’?
With no negatives available to compare, it’s impossible to say why he changed the ending. However, that hasn’t stopped the fans from debating it for 40-plus years.
The Shining producer Jan Harlan and screenwriter Diane Johnson finally addressed why Stanley Kubrick changed the ending of the 1980 film. The end has been something Stephen King fans have debated for decades.
King’s novel ends with a confrontation between Danny and his father, Jack. Danny barely escapes with his mother, Wendy, and the hotel’s cook, Dick Halloran, while Jack dies when the hotel goes up in flames after the furnace malfunctions.
For reasons outlined below, Stanley didn’t like King’s ending and decided they had to change it to make the movie work, Entertainment Weekly reported.
“The ending was changed almost entirely because Kubrick found it a cliche to just blow everything up. He thought there might be something else that would be metaphorically and visually more interesting,” screenwriter Diane Johnson explained.
“Danny’s relationship with his father was the thing that most interested Kubrick,” Diane explained. “He was emotionally involved with the point of…
