Stephen King was a struggling writer with a story he didn't like. He crumpled the first pages and threw them out. His wife, Tabitha, pulled them from the trash. She wanted to know what happened to the girl in the locker room. That girl was Carrie White. The Journal's John Jurgensen says she has outlasted everything else King wrote.
'Carrie' came out in 1974 and made King's career. The 1976 film by Brian De Palma put Sissy Spacek in a prom dress and into horror history. A Broadway musical opened in 1988 and closed after five performances. Then came a 1999 movie sequel, a TV remake in 2002 and another film in 2013. A 2012 off-Broadway musical now plays in hundreds of regional and amateur theaters a year.
Part of the answer is the character. Margaret Atwood, in a 50th-anniversary introduction, called her an 'angel of destruction.' Part of it is business. Jurgensen notes that the way King sold the screen rights helped the book spawn more adaptations than anything else he wrote.
The new one
The new Prime Video series comes from Mike Flanagan, who has adapted King before. Summer H. Howell plays Carrie. The bullies now carry phones and a burner Instagram account. Some viewers are wary of the new story elements, including other kids with powers. Jurgensen reads that as the business need to turn one story into a bigger universe. Amazon (AMZN) has already announced a second season.
King himself never warmed to his creation. He based her on two bullied girls he grew up with in Maine. 'I never liked Carrie,' he wrote in a 2000 memoir. Writing her story, he said, helped him understand her a little.
Our read
File this under Behavioral, with a note for Investments (IN04). The money lesson sits in the first paragraph. King made a call in a bad mood and threw away what became the most-adapted thing he ever wrote. One second look saved it. Investors make the King move when stocks drop hard. Friday was one of those days. The chip and AI names sold off, and days like that push some people to sell things they'd planned to hold for years. Amazon, for what it's worth, is held at weight in 19 of our model books. Nothing was added and nothing was trimmed.
Here's the check. If you're thinking of selling a holding this week because of Friday, find the note you wrote when you bought it. Most 401(k) apps and brokerages keep your buy date and price for you. Read your own reason first. If it still holds, so do you. If you never wrote a reason down, that's the thing to fix before you touch the sell button. Tabitha King took one more look in the trash. A review does the same thing for your portfolio, a second pair of eyes before anything gets thrown out.