Stephen King Doesn’t Plan on Retiring Anytime Soon

Earlier this week, Stephen King released The Institute, marking the 61st novel he’s published since his debut novel Carrie in 1974, but the author doesn’t have any plans to put down his pen in the near future. In addition to his novels, King has published more than 200 stories, creating a legacy that some would think has earned him some well-deserved rest, but with the writer arguably more popular than ever, he claims that his profession is the best job he could imagine and that he’s waiting to get a sign from a higher power about when it’s truly his time to stop.

“God will tell me when to retire,” King shared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “He’ll say, ‘Get out of the game, hang up your jock, you’re done.’ But until then, this is the best job in the world because no one can make you retire at a mandatory age. You can just continue until you start to drivel. And then at that point, it might be a good time for somebody to say, ‘You know, Steve, you outta stop.’ For now, I’m enjoying what I’m doing and I get to be on The Colbert Show, which is not a bad deal.”

Last weekend saw the release of IT CHAPTER TWO, inspired by his 1986 novel IT, while Doctor Sleep, based on his 2013 novel of the same name, is getting a movie adaptation in November. These are only some of the King adaptations on the way, with 2020 seeing even more of his works brought to life.

Just earlier this week, it was confirmed that The Institute was being developed as a TV series. Stephen King’s website describes the new book, “In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis’s parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there’s no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents—telekinesis and telepathy—who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and ten-year-old Avery Dixon. They are all in Front Half. Others, Luke learns, graduated to Back Half, ‘like the roach motel,’ Kalisha says. ‘You check in, but you don’t check out.’”

The site adds, “In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. There are no scruples here. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. If you don’t, punishment is brutal. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute. As psychically terrifying as Firestarter, and with the spectacular kid power of It, The Institute is Stephen King’s gut-wrenchingly dramatic story of good vs. evil in a world where the good guys don’t always win.”

IT CHAPTER TWO is in theaters now. Doctor Sleep hits theaters on November 8th.

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