Uh, what? Cujo, Christine, and Pet Sematary were extremely popular novels that became pretty fucking huge films to this day. And, for Christine and Pet Sematary (probably also the others, but I haven't those), the problems with those novels are things emblematic of King's work as a whole -- things that haven't improved (and may have even gotten worse) as the years went on.
Second, and more importantly, most of King's really great adaptations came from that earlier era. You don't exactly hear a lot of people talking about how the new Carrie is so much better than the first one -- quite the opposite. As for forgettability, in 20 years do you honestly think anybody is going to be talking about Gerald's Game?
I was more specifically addressing your remarks concerning work rates, not quality or cultural impact. Granted, publication isn't necessarily the best metric for work rates anyway, since somebody like SK is likely to get all of his stuff published whereas a lot of other authors will have a few other novels that they haven't managed to sell.
It's worth mentioning that SK supposedly writes about 2,000 words or 6 pages a day which hardly puts him in a league of his own.
Other than the Long Walk, I can't really think of anything that can't be adapted to either tv or a film.
I thought they were doing it as a series?
I enjoyed Phantoms, which is what got me interested in his work. However, a lot of the things he's had adapted -- such as Odd Thomas -- probably sucked in their original form. Even as a YA novel, Odd Thomas seems kinda fucking lousy.
I watched Odd thomas the movie before reading the book (which I did read as well, but alot of the umph was misssing because...well, I watched the movie first). I will say the later books didn't really work for me, and honestly the experience watching the movie, was gut wrenching, I was freaking bawling in fact. So the movie freaking rocked.
I don't know if the book rocked if you read it first....but it wasn't as good reading it after watching it...that was for sure.
I figured out the ending to Sixth Sense before the end of the movie when I watched it, so Odd Thomas just basically took me totally by surprise, it was actually pretty awesome. Other than that, never been a big fan of Koontz personally.
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Tacobot 3000 "Saving the world from not having tacos." Glowing Elephant "Stonehedge was a sex thing."