The Horror Movie Stephen King Sued To Have His Name Removed From
Audiences love a Stephen King movie. The work of the best-selling horror novelist has inspired a large number of films, and even the not-so-good ones draw a crowd. King isn't just an author, he's a brand, and when you slap his name on a movie poster, people tend to notice. Most of King's major works have already been adapted to the big and small screen, but he has plenty of short stories left for filmmakers to draw on. One of King's many short stories is "The Lawnmower Man," first published in a 1975 issue of "Cavalier" before being added to his short story collection "Night Shift," released in 1978. In the 1990s, Hollywood came calling and brought "The Lawnmower Man" to the big screen. Sort of. Kind of. Maybe. Well, not really.
Directed by Brett Leonard, with a script penned by Leonard and Gimel Everett, "The Lawnmower Man" is a curious piece of '90s cinema; a rather dumb cyber-thriller full of digital effects that were even terrible-looking for that particular time period. It's a "Flowers for Algernon"-like story of an intellectually disabled man made more intelligent through science (and virtual reality). Only this new intelligence also comes with superpowers, like psychokinesis. And oh yeah, there's a virtual reality sex scene thrown somewhere in there too.
At this point I should tell you that none of this is in King's short story, and when he saw posters for the film declaring it to be "Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man," the master of horror was not happy.
Eating grass
King's "The Lawnmower Man" short story focuses on a guy named Harold Parkette. His lawn is in desperate need of mowing, and so he hires a company called Pastoral Greenery to come do the job. The lawnmower man who shows up is short, fat, hairy, and kind of strange. Later, Harold looks outside to see an utterly bizarre sight: the lawnmower is moving by itself, and following behind it is the completely nude lawnmower man, crawling around on all fours and eating the grass clippings. The lawnmower man then spots a mole and kills it, and the sight of all of this causes Harold to faint. Which is kind of understandable, all things considered.
When Harold wakes up, the weirdo lawnmower man starts talking about human sacrifices. Harold tries to call the police, but the lawnmower man catches him and tells him that his "boss" is the ancient god Pan. Poor Harold is completely freaked out by this and attempts to run away, but the lawnmower man catches him and kills him. It's a strange story, and it's definitely not one of King's best works. And if you've seen "The Lawnmower Man" movie, you know that none of this, except for the "lawnmower moving by itself" bit, makes its way into the adaptation.
Beyond cyberspace
In "The Lawnmower Man" movie, we meet Dr. Lawrence Angelo (Pierce Brosnan), a scientist doing experiments using both drugs and virtual reality with the hopes of improving cognitive functions. At first, Dr. Angelo is experimenting on a chimp. But the poor animal is killed after it gets aggressive and escapes the lab. You'd think this experience would give Dr. Angelo pause, but in true "mad scientist" fashion, he decides to move on to human experimentation. And his human subject is Jobe Smith (Jeff Fahey), a landscaper who is also intellectually disabled.
The experiments, which involve a lot of terrible CGI looks at virtual reality, not only turn Jobe brilliant, they also give him the power to move things with his mind. Eventually, Jobe goes mad with power and starts using his newfound abilities to kill anyone who was ever mean to him. Soon realizing the error of his ways, Dr. Angelo tries to put a stop to this, but Jobe has become uber-powerful at this point.
It all comes to a head when Dr. Angelo and Jobe battle in the virtual world. Eventually, the "good" side of Jobe returns long enough for Dr. Angelo to escape. The building housing the virtual reality servers explodes, and Jobe, still trapped inside, is killed — or is he?! An epilogue makes it clear Jobe escaped destruction and is now virtually everywhere. To hammer this point home, the film even got a sequel, 1996's "Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace" (which was also briefly called "Jobe's War" before they decided "Beyond Cyberspace" sounded cooler).
The biggest rip-off
According to the book "Creepshows: The Illustrated Stephen King Movie Guide," King didn't even know about "The Lawnmower Man" movie until he saw a poster for the film — with his name on it — in his local theater. And when he finally saw the completed film, he wasn't happy. King told the Los Angeles Times, "It's the biggest rip-off that you could imagine because there's nothing of me in there. It just makes me furious." He added: "My name shouldn't be on it ... They're interested in exploiting me. My work is being strip-mined by the same studio that gave us the Ninja Turtles."
To be fair, King's name has been slapped on plenty of crappy movies. But this was taking things too far. The film had absolutely nothing to do with his short story, and yet it was being marketed on his name. New Line Cinema, who distributed the film, wasn't even being coy about the matter. As New Line CEO Bob Shaye was quoted as saying, "[King's] name was the most important thing we were buying" when they bought the rights to the story.
King wasn't having it. He went to court, suing to have his name removed from the film. And he won: a judge ruled in King's favor. A Second Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled in King's favor, although New Line could keep a "based on" credit after paying the author $2.5 million in damages. You'd think that would be the end of it, but later, New Line was found to be in contempt of court by keeping King's name on the home video release of the film. Once again, King sued, and the studio would have to pay him $10,000 a day if they didn't remove the author's name.
In the end, King won in court, but the damage was already done. "The Lawnmower Man" movie may have absolutely nothing to do with King's work, but it will forever be associated with the famed author. "People can say this is stupid and that I'm getting rich, but I don't feel that way," King told the Los Angeles Times. "My name is my fortune and it's the only name I've got. I've got a minuscule percentage, but I'll never see a cent. Take my word on it."