Stephen King‘s The Regulators, a novel that has yet to be adapted into a film, almost became a movie directed by legendary Western filmmaker Sam Peckinpah in the early 1980s. During this era, Stephen King adaptations were dominating the entertainment industry with successful films such as Carrie, The Shining, and Christine making a significant impact. Despite the rich history of King’s work on screen, The Regulators remains one of the few novels without an adaptation, though it nearly transformed into a horror Western under Peckinpah’s guidance.
Stephen King has had a continuous presence in film and television adaptations since the late 1970s, due to his prolific output. However, several of his novels have lingered without screen versions, including Revival, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and Insomnia. The Regulators stands out as particularly unusual among these, being a sort of companion piece to his novel Desperation.
Written under King’s pseudonym Richard Bachman, The Regulators tells the story of a quiet suburban neighborhood besieged by a group of violent, shotgun-wielding attackers. The novel has a meta and experimental quality and traces its origins to an unproduced screenplay titled The Shotgunners, penned by King himself.
Sam Peckinpah’s Interest in Bringing The Shotgunners to Life
In the early 1980s, Sam Peckinpah, famed for revolutionizing the Western genre, almost added Stephen King to the list of high-profile directors he worked with. Peckinpah met with King to discuss adapting The Shotgunners screenplay into a film, representing a unique fusion of King’s horror Western concept with Peckinpah’s cinematic style.
King wrote The Shotgunners script intensely over one week, much like his approach to The Running Man, another project he authored under his Bachman pen name. Despite its originality, the screenplay initially failed to attract interest from studios. However, Peckinpah, coming off his 1983 thriller The Osterman Weekend, saw potential in the script and considered it for his next project (source: Joseph B. Mauceri).
Sam was looking for a picture to make and I had this screenplay that was called The Shotgunners which I had for a long time and went back something like five years. It was one of these feverous things that I’d written in about a week. I really like it but there was not interest in it. Sam read it, liked it a lot and suggested some things for the script that were really interesting. I thought that I could go back and do a second draft.
—Stephen King, Author
Unfortunately, Peckinpah’s declining health and lifestyle issues led to his death in December 1984 before any second draft or production could be completed, effectively ending the project. After his passing, King shelved the screenplay for nearly a decade, putting the concept on indefinite hold.
The exact differences between Peckinpah’s The Shotgunners script and King’s later novel The Regulators remain unclear, though it is believed they shared only the core ideas of a neighborhood under siege.
The Lasting Influence of Sam Peckinpah on Western Cinema
Sam Peckinpah’s career was marked by his intense, often controversial directing style, as well as his personal struggles with alcohol and drug abuse. He became known as much for his abrasive personality as for his cinematic achievements.
Peckinpah’s landmark film The Wild Bunch, released in 1969, stands as a turning point in the Western genre. The story centers on an aging group of outlaws attempting one final heist before the modern era extinguishes the Old West. The film’s unapologetic violence and use of slow-motion sequences to depict brutal gunfights were groundbreaking, capped by a climactic battle that kills nearly 100 characters in just five minutes.
More than just graphic violence, The Wild Bunch offers a somber reflection on the fading era of the Old West, exploring themes of loyalty, heartbreak, and mortality among flawed men.
Despite Peckinpah’s successes, his clashes with studios contributed to frequent difficulties in getting projects greenlit after The Wild Bunch. His filmography also includes other divisive works like Straw Dogs and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Attempts to remake The Wild Bunch have stalled for over a decade, with high-profile directors such as Tony Scott and Mel Gibson attached at various stages.
Initial reactions to The Wild Bunch were mixed; its violent content shocked audiences and drew ire from figures like John Wayne. Yet, the film’s impact reshaped Westerns by introducing a cynical, more realistic portrayal of the Old West. Its innovative techniques, including realistic blood effects and slow-motion violence, influenced later films such as The Outlaw Josey Wales and John Wayne’s Big Jake.
Stephen King Transformed The Shotgunners into The Regulators
Fans of Stephen King experienced an unusual publishing event on September 24, 1996, when King released two interlinked novels: Desperation and The Regulators. These books share characters and the malevolent deity Tak but follow parallel, alternate storylines.
The Regulators functions as a “what if?” counterpart to Desperation, reimagining similar events and characters but through a different narrative. This novel is widely recognized as a reworking of the earlier, unused The Shotgunners screenplay, bringing King’s horror Western vision to a literary form.
Throughout his career, King has written screenplays for seven of his adaptations, but his success in filmmaking has been limited. The author also tends to delay some projects for years or even decades before revisiting them, as he did with Under the Dome, originally conceived in 1972 but published in 2009.
The Regulators highlights how King reengaged a concept after shelving it for years, modifying the original screenplay into a novel connected to Desperation. While King has not elaborated on the differences between The Shotgunners and The Regulators, the transformation into a tightly linked companion novel suggests significant creative revisions.
Reasons Why The Regulators Remains Unadapted in Film or Television
Unlike Desperation, which was adapted into a television movie for ABC in 2006 with input from King and director Mick Garris, The Regulators has yet to be brought to the screen. The 2006 adaptation of Desperation featured notable actors such as Ron Perlman, Tom Skerritt, and Annabeth Gish, but despite this cast, it received a lukewarm response and was outperformed in ratings by shows like American Idol.
Mick Garris, who often collaborates with King, has stated he has no interest in adapting The Regulators, and Desperation’s underwhelming reception likely decreased network enthusiasm for a sequel or companion adaptation.
The original The Shotgunners screenplay is notable for marking King’s first attempt at writing an original script. After its failure to attract production, King did not write another original film screenplay until 1992’s Sleepwalkers.
While rumors have surfaced over the years about potential film versions of The Regulators, most recently in 2022, none have come to fruition. The journey of The Regulators from a screenplay to a novel to a potential movie remains unfinished, leaving it as an intriguing “what could have been” in King’s oeuvre.
The prospect of The Regulators becoming a gory horror Western directed with Peckinpah’s unique vision remains appealing to fans and cinephiles, though it is possible that Peckinpah’s unrealized version may still be the most compelling iteration of that story.
Our Reader’s Queries
Q. How high is Stephen King’s IQ?
A. Stephen King is a famous American writer known for horror, supernatural fiction, and suspense stories. He is highly successful and writes many books. It is said that his IQ is about 130. He is praised for creating gripping and thrilling stories that many people enjoy and critics respect.
