Was remade as Stephen King's 'Needful Things'

With this film, Disney ventured into dark, very adult territory. Stephen King explored similar territory in his novel Needful Things, and while his approach to this type of material was unquestionably more vicious, it lacked the elegance and subtlety of Bradbury's tale. Adults will find many of Bradbury's themes about loss, regret, and second chances engaging, and children will be treated to a macabre toy box of frights.

A modern gothic tale... [that] explored secret wishes (and the mystery men who can grant them) long before Stephan King wrote Needful Things.


Needful Things is a 1991 horror novel by Stephen King.


Something Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 novel by Ray Bradbury.


Sad to say.... the "film" ("NOT") the book .. "Needful Things" delivers on said expectations, no more, no less. ...!

King has always been kinda shady with his sources. Take for instance the fact there was an episode of the 80's show Amazing Stories about a death-row prisoner who gains the ability to heal with lightning... Sound familiar? The writer, Mick Garris, has even worked with King extensively.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0511102/

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Needful Things: The Devil himself comes to Castle Rock and opens up a Curio shop filled with exactly what you most desire (you think), but the price of the item is not money, but a prank on some other member of the small town you do not know. The Devil pits everyone against everyone else and sits back to watch the fireworks.

Something Wicked This Way Comes: A strange, dark man and his circus come to a small town just at the touch of Autumn, and give each person in town exactly what they want, but the price in return is they pay in pain and suffering.

It is true that the two stories are similar, but in no way would I consider one the ripoff of another. The strange folk that brought the carnival to the town had a time limit, and no definition of what they were or why they were there was ever really given besides the need to feed on the pain of the townsfolk.

In Needful Things, however, the Devil is pretty much running the game by himself. He does use certain people in the town (Ace from Stand By Me, I believe or at least a character similar to that effect) but overall its his show. And his power alone is much greater than that of the dark leader of the strange carnival.

Also in Needful Things the items themselves had magical properties imbued in them, making them SEEM like they were what they were, when in fact they were nothing of value whatsoever. It was all the Devil having fun. Nobody truly got what they wanted, while in WICKED, everyone got exactly what they wanted, just not the WAY they wanted it.

So, although I can certainly see strong similarities, I do not think anybody ripped off anything. I think they are two very good stories, and at least in the case of WICKED, at least one good movie.

My thoughts: https://xanderpayne.blogspot.com
My book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01G6OI7HG

You didn't come here to make the choice, you're here to understand why you made it.

Stephen King often sites Ray Bradbury as a major influence on his style, however Needful things is an accredited expansion on Richard Matheson's short story "The Distributor"

Atheism is a religion in the same way that celibacy is a sexual position

I have no time to read all of this thread, but I agree that King did seem to get his idea from this and expanded on it when he wrote Needful Things.
It's the same with Shirley Jackson's, The Haunting.... haunting of Hill House.
He wrote Rose Red.
Don't all authors get ideas from stories that have been written though?