'Doctor Sleep' star Rebecca Ferguson says another 'Shining' sequel 'wouldn't shock her' (exclusive)

Rebecca Ferguson has said it “would never shock” her if Stephen King and director Mike Flanagan were to produce another follow-up to The Shining after Doctor Sleep.

Ferguson plays the villainous Rose the Hat — who drains the energy of teens who possess the “shining” ability — in the sequel to the horror classic, adapted from King’s 2013 novel.

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The marketing artwork for the film is leaning heavily on its connections to Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film adaptation and is being sold with the tagline of: “The next chapter in The Shining story“.

The lack of finality in that tagline seems to suggest there is room for either King or Flanagan to return to the world of the Overlook Hotel in the future.

“It would never shock me,” Ferguson said to Yahoo Movies UK when asked about another sequel.

She added: “Stephen King is such an incredible inventor of stories and characters. I wouldn't see reason as to why it wouldn't work.

“But then the question is that sometimes things need to end, you know?”

Read more: The Shining actor reacts to Doctor Sleep trailer

The story of Doctor Sleep returns to Danny Torrance — now played by Ewan McGregor — several decades after the events of The Shining, struggling with alcoholism as he attempts to put to bed the trauma of his youth.

He eventually encounters Abra (Kyliegh Curran), who also has the power of “the shining” and has become a target of Rose and her cult of friends.

The new film straddles the vision of King and Kubrick, hoping to bypass the antipathy the author feels towards the original film, which changed many details of his story.

Ferguson said she felt somewhat “ignorant” of the friction between King and Kubrick and was unaware of that problem when she first fell in love with the classic film.

“Kubrick made something incredible and we have made something that's ours,” she said. “I just hope people can enjoy both of them, separately or together.”

Flanagan, who previously adapted King in Netflix horror Gerald’s Game, was keen to replicate the environment of the Overlook Hotel meticulously for this film and even allowed the cast to get in on the act.

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Ferguson said that a version of Danny’s tricycle was created for the adult actors to trundle around the halls of the hotel.

She added: “It is the world of The Shining, obviously, but I felt really independent within our own creation.

“Mike, I think, is one of the directors who I would say could handle that and handle the genre and actually make us feel very supported and very safe within our own film, our own entity.

“It has so many beautiful connections to The Shining, but I think if you see yourself in the world of The Shining, you are building up for failure.

“You can't compare, but you can create and latch on. That was what the feeling was like on set.”

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Doctor Sleep is far from the first King adaptation to arrive on the big screen this year, with a remake of Pet Sematary hitting cinemas along with the epic sequel It Chapter Two and the Netflix movie In the Tall Grass.

Further King stories in the works include a new version of Salem’s Lot and a movie adaptation of The Long Walk, helmed by Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark director Andre Øvredal.

Doctor Sleep will arrive in cinemas on 31 October, in time for Halloween night.