Maximum Overdrive Was Meant To Be In A Stephen King Movie Anthology With Lawnmower Man

1986's "Maximum Overdrive" was the first film that Stephen King directed. It has also been, to date, his last. It was notoriously panned by critics and rejected by fans. This must have been a blow to King's ego, as the bulk of films and TV shows based on his work had, up to that point, mostly been hits. The world had already seen "Carrie," "The Shining," "Cujo," "The Dead Zone," "Christine," "Creepshow," and "Cat's Eye." King's own "Maximum Overdrive" was the author's first legitimate bomb. 

The film was based on King's 1978 short story "Trucks," about a remote truck stop that was attacked by seemingly sentient, murderous semis. The film had a lot of AC/DC on the soundtrack, and starred then-hot Emilio Estevez. The most notable antagonist was a toy delivery truck with a giant goblin face on its front. As mentioned, critics lambasted its bonkers energy and silly images, and the film went on to be nominated for multiple Razzies. Decades later, it had only gained traction as a cult oddity and was still being discussed on bad-movie podcasts like "How Did This Get Made?" This was the same podcast that delved into films like "Birdemic: Shock and Terror," "From Justin to Kelly," and "The Apple." 

Indeed, the "How Did This Get Made?" podcast will very occasionally do a deep dive into certain particularly notorious movies, contacting the filmmakers to figure out, well, just exactly how something got made. /Film previously covered the oral history of "Maximum Overdrive," and an interesting detail came to light. It seems that "Maximum Overdrive" was originally intended to be one segment of a Stephen King anthology film called "The Machines" that was also going to include short renditions of King's "The Lawnmower Man" and "The Mangler." 

The story goes that an ambitious producer named Milton Subotsky had purchased the film rights to multiple stories in King's 1978 short story anthology "Night Shift." That volume famously housed "Trucks," "The Lawnmower Man," and "The Mangler," but also "Children of the Corn," "The Boogeyman," "Jerusalem's Lot," and "Sometimes They Come Back." Big screen adaptations of two of the "Night Shift" stories — "Quitters, Inc." and "The Ledge" — were included in the anthology film "Cat's Eye."

It should be noted that King hated Subotsky, as the producer had once said that horror stories should have happy endings, a sentiment King vehemently disagrees with. Roberto Croci, who served as the on-set translator on the Italian "Maximum Overdrive" sets, recalls the early stages of production and how Subotsky wanted to make a "Cat's Eye"-like anthology. It was even written when the project fell apart due to a lack of funding. In Croci's words: 

"[W]ith 'Trucks' — not unlike Cat's Eye, which was an anthology of three unrelated King stories — the plan was to package this one with 'The Lawnmower Man' and 'The Mangler' to create a compilation called 'The Machines.' Subotsky moved forward with this idea, to the point that he even had a script drafted by screenwriters Edward and Valerie Abraham. Ultimately, however, he was unable to secure financing."

Subotsky ended up selling the rights to "Trucks" to star producer Dino De Laurentiis, as he needed the money to pay for an unrelated lawsuit. The anthology idea fell apart. 

The notion of unifying "Maximum Overdrive," "The Lawnmower Man," and "The Mangler" is rather absurd, if you're familiar with what happened to the "Lawnmower Man" and "Mangler" adaptations in the 1990s. 

"The Lawnmower Man" is an odd duck unto itself. It should immediately be recalled that Brett Leonard's 1992 film adaptation of Stephen King's "The Lawnmower Man" was an adaptation in name only. King's 1975 short story "The Lawnmower Man" was about a mysterious gardener hired to mow the protagonist's lawn. The gardener, however, seems to operate the lawnmower physically, and likes to ravenously eat the grass clippings while naked. It's eventually revealed that the gardener is a satyr, and uses the lawnmower to make sacrifices to the great god Pan. The satyr runs down the protagonist with the mower, and chunks of him fly into his birdbath. 

Leonard's film, in stark contrast, is about a brain scientist (Pierce Brosnan) who uses high-end drugs and mysterious new virtual reality technologies to enhance the brain of a local gardener named Jobe (Jeff Fahey). Jobe ends up becoming a mad psychic genius and aims to inject his consciousness into the world's computers. "The Lawnmower Man" was also covered by "How Did This Get Made?" It was so bad, Stephen King sued — successfully — to have his name removed. 

"The Mangler," meanwhile, was adapted into its own movie in 1995 by director Tobe Hooper. The story took place in a bonkers parallel version of the 1940s, and centered on an industrial laundry mangle that was possessed by a demon. The Mangler's owner, played by Robert Englund, allowed his employees to occasionally be mangled and killed by the machine as a form of human sacrifice. The film is very, very odd, and climaxes when the truck-sized Mangler comes to life and starts chasing Ted Levine through the factory. 

The thought that three utterly bonkers movies like "Maximum Overdrive," "The Lawnmower Man," and "The Mangler" were once united in a single film is tantalizing to say the least. Well, tantalizing to those who love trash cinema. 

For everyone else, it might have been the worst King adaptation ever. And "Dreamcatcher" still exists.