page_title: Rose Red (miniseries)
section_title: Writing
hierarchical_section_title: Rose Red (miniseries) / Production / Writing
caption_attribution_description: Winchester House, 525 South Winchester Boulevard, San Jose, Santa Clara, CA. VIEW LOOKING SOUTH FROM TOP FLOOR
context_page_description: Rose Red is a 2002 American television miniseries scripted by horror novelist Stephen King, directed by Craig R. Baxley, and starring Nancy Travis, Matt Keeslar, Julian Sands, Kimberly J. Brown, David Dukes, Melanie Lynskey, Matt Ross, and Emily Deschanel. It was filmed in Lakewood, Washington. The plot focuses on a reputedly haunted mansion located in Seattle, Washington named Rose Red. Due to its long history of supernatural events and unexplained tragedies, the house is investigated by parapsychologist Dr. Joyce Reardon and a team of gifted psychics.
  Originally conceived as a feature film, writer Stephen King pitched the idea for Rose Red to Steven Spielberg in 1996, envisioning it as a loose remake of Robert Wise's 1963 film The Haunting. In 1999, a feature film remake of The Haunting was released, after which King's script was revised and expanded into a miniseries. In writing the teleplay, King incorporated a variety of influences, including elements of Jackson's novel as well as the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California. The setting changed from Los Angeles to Seattle after the production team secured the Thornewood Estate in Lakewood as a shooting location.
context_section_description: After surgery and a month's recovery in the hospital, King returned home and completed work on the Rose Red script over the next month, recasting the project as a television miniseries. He would later state that in converting the screenplay into a miniseries teleplay, he found the miniseries format more conducive to his writing style, specifically because the detail-oriented nature of his writing: "I'm a putter-in-'er rather than a take-'er-outer," he said. The writing proved to be therapeutic:
  I was using the work as dope, basically, because it worked better than anything they were giving me to kill the pain. It was very difficult to push the pen 45 minutes a day, but it was vital to get back to work, because you have to break the ice somehow. You have to say, "This is what I do." I'm either going to continue to work, or I'm not. You say, "If I can do this, maybe I can walk. If I can walk, maybe I can resume some kind of human intercourse." Work seemed like a logical place to start.
  King partly based his concept for Rose Red on the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California, but added the concept that the house could appear larger and different on the inside even though it looked the same from the outside. The action was originally set in Los Angeles, California, and the production crew scouted the Winchester Mystery House as a possible filming location. Although the project was no longer intended to be an adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House, the script continued to borrow heavily from Shirley Jackson's novel. The team of researchers strongly resembles that assembled in Jackson's novel, and the rain of rocks is identical to one described in Jackson's story.
  Pre-production began in July 2000. After a five-month search for a shooting location, the producers discovered Thornewood Castle in Lakewood, Washington, and secured permission to use the mansion as the façade of Rose Red. King subsequently rewrote elements of script and set the action in Seattle, Washington, to accommodate the change. The production paid $500,000 to have many of the rooms on the first floor of Thornewood restored to their early 20th-century state for filming of the miniseries. At the time, the main floor of the house had been partially converted into apartments. Dead trees and dead ivy were used to make Thornewood appear abandoned.
caption: The Winchester Mystery House served as an inspiration for King while writing Rose Red
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