Blank Check — Patreon: Doctor Sleep

Published 2022-11-11; 1:35:18 by the feed.

As extracted (engineer-sonnet-2026-10-13)

The extraction calls the show “Blank Check with Griffin & David (Patreon)” and the episode “Doctor Sleep”.

Hosts: Griffin Newman, David Sims, Ben Hosley. Guests: none.

Subject films: Doctor Sleep (2019).

On the transcript: Mostly clean regular-format Blank Check Patreon audio, with no speaker labels and many ASR errors on names. The hosts read a mini dossier of Flanagan, King, Ferguson and Tremblay quotes aloud, but this is not the long dossier-reading style of the other miniseries episodes.

Added from the extractor's memory, not said

Terminator 2: Judgment Day: the speakers say 'John Connor' and the 'hasta la vista' line only; the specific film title is inferred.
Emily Alyn Lind, Zahn McClarnon, Carel Struycken, Kyliegh Curran, Christopher McQuarrie, Stephen Daldry, Roland Emmerich, John Leguizamo, Jocelin Donahue spellings are corrections of ASR-mangled names, not facts added from memory.

Films that came up

Claims (33)

lineage (King hated the adaptation): Stephen King → The Shining. The film is a Kubrick film King hated, which sits under the whole project.
“trying to do the thing Stephen King hated”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:03:31 · David Sims (0.90 sure it was them)
lineage (adaptation): Stephen King → Gerald's Game. Gerald's Game is a King adaptation, which gave Flanagan a King connection before Doctor Sleep.
“I guess Gerald's game is a king adaptation, right?”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:12:29 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
lineage (sequel): The Shining → Doctor Sleep. Doctor Sleep is the sequel to Kubrick's The Shining, which is the whole sell and the whole problem.
“You're doing a sequel to The Shining.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:12:41 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
theme (King-like author character): Mike Flanagan → The Haunting of Hill House. Hill House has a character who becomes a paperback author very similar to King.
“one of the characters becomes like a, like, an author of, like, paperback, like, novels very similar to King.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:13:04 · David Sims (0.30 sure it was them)
unmapped (Netflix hit gave Flanagan the job): The Haunting of Hill House → Doctor Sleep. The speakers guess the hit Netflix King adaptation and Hill House, after Oculus and Ouija, are why Flanagan got Doctor Sleep.
“And then I think it really is the Geralds game thing.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:13:27 · David Sims (0.30 sure it was them)
theme (comparison): Hush → Wait Until Dark. Hush is a simple home-invasion thriller in the vein of Wait Until Dark, Lights Out, Don't Breathe.
“It's his kind of wait until dark.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:14:03 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
lineage (adaptation): Doctor Sleep (King's novel) → Doctor Sleep. The film is an adaptation of King's Doctor Sleep, a bestseller Warner Brothers optioned.
“Warner Brothers, option the rights, put Akiva Goldsman on it.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:14:23 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
unmapped (restored ending): The Shining (King's novel) → Doctor Sleep. Flanagan pitched going back to the Overlook as a means to restore the burn-down ending of King's book, which won King over.
“he said, I'm going to go back to the Overlook, but as means to an end to restore your ending.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:16:33 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
unmapped (proof of concept): Mike Flanagan → Stephen King. Flanagan wrote the bar scene before the script and gave it to King as a sample of how he would thread the needle.
“He wrote that before he wrote the script and gave that to King”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:17:01 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
people (contrast (digital vs actors)): Doctor Sleep → The Irishman. The two arrived the same month, one casting new actors for Nicholson and company, the other de-aging the originals.
“This movie comes out right around the same time as the Irishman.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:18:06 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
unmapped (no CGI Nicholson): Mike Flanagan → Doctor Sleep. Flanagan reportedly considered a CGI Jack Nicholson and chose four new actors instead.
“do we make like a CGI Jack Nicholson?”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:18:13 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
people (regular collaborator): Mike Flanagan → Henry Thomas. Henry Thomas is one of Flanagan's stable actors.
“one of my Flanagan's favorite, like, stable actors.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:19:03 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
people (tried to cast): Steven Spielberg → Jack Nicholson. Spielberg reportedly tried hard to get Nicholson for a cameo in Ready Player One.
“I had heard how hard Spielberg tried to get him for Ready Player one.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:21:18 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
unmapped (King's disavowal): Doctor Sleep (King's novel) → The Shining. King's sequel book, speakers say, goes out of its way to say Kubrick's movie did not happen.
“it feels like he's even, you know, trying in the book to be like, and that movie didn't happen, FYI”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:23:19 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
programming (trauma horror pairing): Doctor Sleep → Smile. Both are horror films about trauma, in the host's framing of a trend of elevated horror.
“smile is literally about trauma”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:25:13 · David Sims (0.30 sure it was them)
theme (shine as comparison): The Glass trilogy (Unbreakable, Split, Glass) → Doctor Sleep. The film's treatment of the shine resembles the Glass trilogy, but Doctor Sleep avoids saying trauma causes the powers.
“There is this sort of like Shyamalan glass trilogy thing. to the way this movie represents the shine.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:32:36 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
unmapped (praise): Danny Boyle → Ewan McGregor. Danny Boyle said McGregor is uniquely good at depicting physical pain on screen.
“Ewan is uniquely good at depicting pain on screen.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:49:55 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
unmapped (holds her own): Rebecca Ferguson → Mission: Impossible. Ferguson held her own against Tom Cruise in the Mission: Impossible movies.
“has been able to hold her own against Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible movies.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:53:57 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
unmapped (praised her preparation): Denis Villeneuve → Rebecca Ferguson. A Villeneuve interview around Dune showed her notes on every line.
“I saw some interview with Denise Velneuve when Dune was coming out and he talked about how meticulous she is.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:54:19 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
unmapped (also in): Carel Struycken → Twin Peaks. The actor playing Grandpa Flick is also from Twin Peaks.
“He's, you know, from Twin Peaks as well.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:56:17 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
craft (visual echo): Doctor Sleep → The Shining. The hospice office is composed like the Overlook interview scene, reversed so the boss helps instead of dooms.
“It's composed like the exact same way as that 1st interview sequence in the original film.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:59:43 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
unmapped (worked together before): Mike Flanagan → Jacob Tremblay. Flanagan had directed Tremblay before in Before I Wake.
“You know, he's worked with Tremblay before, because Tremblay isn't before I wake.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:00:59 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
career (competing project): Warner Brothers Overlook Hotel prequel (unmade) → Doctor Sleep. Warner Brothers spent about ten years trying to build something in the Shining universe, including a prequel Mark Romanek was to direct.
“Warner Brothers was also trying for a very long time to make an Overlook Hotel prequel, which Mark Romantic was supposed to direct at some”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:03:51 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
people (cameo link): Doctor Sleep → The Shining. The boy who played Danny in The Shining appears as a parent on the sideline in the baseball scene.
“That is the kid who plays Danny in the original Shining.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:05:22 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
lineage (legacy sequel (contrast)): Ghostbusters: Afterlife → Doctor Sleep. Afterlife is eager to relive the first movie for no reason; Doctor Sleep avoids the original for as long as it can, so its return is earned.
“Ghostbusters Afterlife is a perfect example of the movie is so eager to relive the 1st movie”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:07:27 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
programming (sequel to a Kubrick film (pairing)): 2010 → Doctor Sleep. The Patreon feed also covered 2010, another sequel to a Kubrick movie that avoids aping his style.
“Another example of how dare you make a sequel to a Stanley Kubrick movie.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:12:11 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
unmapped (recreated sets): Doctor Sleep → The Shining. Flanagan rebuilds the Overlook's art direction detail for detail without trying to ape Kubrick's style.
“Every typewriter is the same color”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:12:31 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
unmapped (learned sustained tension): Stanley Kubrick → Mike Flanagan. Flanagan, quoted from the hosts' dossier, says he learned sustaining tension over jump scares from Kubrick.
“I'm much more interested in sustaining tension, which I learned from Mr. Stanley Cooper.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:13:41 · Griffin Newman (0.60 sure it was them)
unmapped (Overlook recreated): Ready Player One → Doctor Sleep. Ready Player One rebuilt the hotel as a deliberate CGI recreation the year before; Doctor Sleep puts live actors into it.
“Ready Player one has this whole sequence where it is truly just a CGI recreation of the hotel”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:15:50 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
craft (score reused): Wendy Carlos → Doctor Sleep. Doctor Sleep uses the Wendy Carlos Shining score and holds off on it for a long time.
“Even just the way they use the Wendy Carlos score and hold off on it for a long time.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:16:19 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
lineage (ripoff): Black Adam → Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The Black Adam kid is called a straight John Connor ripoff, down to the skateboard and the catchphrase coaching.
“It is a straight up John Connor ripoff.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:18:46 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
unmapped (also in): Jocelin Donahue → The House of the Devil. The mother in the final scene is from House of the Devil.
“The mother is Jocelyn Donahue from House of the Devil.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:22:51 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
unmapped (got him a job): Tim Miller → Jeff Fowler. Fowler was hired onto Sonic because he had the Tim Miller stamp of approval.
“Jeff Fowler got hired onto Sonic because he had the Tim Miller stamp of approval.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:31:40 · Griffin Newman (0.30 sure it was them)

Fun items (19)

fun, about David Sims: Sims says his review was positive but he reversed on the film within two weeks and wanted to rewatch it.
“And within 2 weeks, you were like, is that movie better than I'm giving it credit for being?”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:03:50 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Mike Flanagan: Flanagan wrote the bar scene before the script and sent it to King as proof of concept; a host jokes he slipped a $20 in the pages.
“He slipped a crisp 20 into those pages.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:17:16 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Henry Thomas / Doctor Sleep: Henry Thomas, Elliott from E.T., plays Jack Torrance in the bar scene, shot in profile with his chin down; the host did not recognize him until the credits.
“And then somehow the moment he comes on screen and the entire scene, extended scene is all done from profile.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:20:00 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about The Shining: The tub lady gets more screen time in the director's cut, with a joke about her asking for the loofah.
“She says, can you pass the loofah?”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:27:50 · Griffin Newman (0.30 sure it was them)
fun, about Doctor Sleep (director's cut): The director's cut has chapters, and takes fifteen minutes to show Ewan McGregor on screen.
“Director's cut takes 15 minutes before you and McGregor shows up on screen.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:29:39 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Ewan McGregor / The Island: A studio exec threw The Island under the bus: the mistake was hiring the stars of tomorrow rather than the stars of today.
“the mistake we made was hiring the stars of tomorrow rather than the stars of today.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:41:19 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Danny Boyle / Ewan McGregor: Danny Boyle reportedly said McGregor's superpower is depicting physical pain on screen.
“Ewan is uniquely good at depicting pain on screen.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:49:55 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Rebecca Ferguson: A host notices her Irish accent slips in on purpose, since Rose has lived thousands of years and the roots are nearly gone.
“She is choosing to have an Irish accent slip in sometime, because the point is this character has been alive for 1000s of years.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:54:55 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Rose the Hat: Joke biography of Rose: Irish for thousands of years, then in the 1960s a hat and Fleetwood Mac.
“1960s, decides to wear a hat. Becomes her thing. listens to Fleetwood Mac one time.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 0:55:15 · Griffin Newman (0.30 sure it was them)
fun, about Rebecca Ferguson: Flanagan quote: Ferguson could not talk after the first take of the Tremblay scene.
“Rebecca Ferguson couldn't talk after the 1st take.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:01:27 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Jacob Tremblay: Flanagan quote read aloud: after the harrowing scene Tremblay hopped up, high-fived his dad and got a candy bar from craft services.
“And then Jacob just hopped up, brushed himself off, high-fived his dad, went and got a candy bar from craft services, and the rest of us couldn't even blink.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:01:31 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Doctor Sleep: Warner Brothers had Flanagan start writing a Halloran prequel while they believed the film would be a four-quadrant hit.
“they had Flanagan start writing a Halloran prequel.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:04:18 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Doctor Sleep: In the baseball scene a sideline parent is the actor who played Danny in The Shining, now a school teacher who was excited to do it.
“He's a school teacher.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:05:28 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Doctor Sleep: Shot in Atlanta on a three month schedule, with no Kubrickian nonsense.
“Three month shoot.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:11:58 · Griffin Newman (0.30 sure it was them)
fun, about Mike Flanagan: Flanagan says he hates jump scares and learned to sustain tension from Kubrick.
“I hate jump scares.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:13:28 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Ready Player One: Hosts imagine a future Ready Player Two visiting a Doctor Sleep verse of quiet conversations around cups of tea.
“Well, and I hope that 30 years from now there's a Ready Player one, Ready Player 2, where they go to the Doctor Sleep Averse.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:16:08 · Griffin Newman (0.30 sure it was them)
fun, about Doctor Sleep (box office): Opening weekend, November 8, 2019: number two behind Lionsgate's Midway at $14 million.
“This film opens number two”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:27:12 · David Sims (0.30 sure it was them)
fun, about The Addams Family 2: The oddest trailer tagline: next year things return to normal, in a 2020 trailer.
“the weirdest trailer tagline I've ever seen.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:32:53 · David Sims (0.30 sure it was them)
fun, about Doctor Sleep (title): The title comes from Danny's humane way of easing people dying in a hospice, a minor thread; some say it should have been Shining 2.
“It's funny that the title of the movie comes from like his very humane way of helping people be at ease before they die, a very sort of minor plot thread.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Doctor Sleep · 1:33:43 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)

Who's talking

Griffin Newman (host): Loves Doctor Sleep and the director's cut, and the idea that the sequel deepens The Shining. Treats Flanagan's patient, emotional horror as a plus and dislikes jump scares. A sucker for Rose the Hat as a villain and for the box office game.
David Sims (host): A critic who gave Doctor Sleep a positive-but-mixed review, then reversed within two weeks and now rates it highly, in the director's cut especially. Likes Ewan McGregor and, by his own account, enjoys Stephen King but is not a deep reader of him.
Ben Hosley (host): Little taste shows in this transcript; mostly a producer in the room who gets pulled into bits and asked for the studio name in the box office game.

The show's recurring bits

Names the transcriber got wrong

'Ewan McGregor' appears as 'you and McGregor' in one line
'Rose the hat' / 'roast the hat' for Rose the Hat
'Snake by Dandy' / 'snake by handy' is Snakebite Andi
'Emily Allen' is Emily Alyn Lind
'Zach McClaren' is Zahn McClarnon
'Carol Stricken' is Carel Struycken
'Kylie Curran' is Kyliegh Curran
'Mark Romantic' is Mark Romanek
'Stanley Cooper' (in a Flanagan quote) is Stanley Kubrick
'Jocelyn Donahue' is Jocelin Donahue
'Sandra's dream' is Cassandra's Dream
'McCue' is Christopher McQuarrie
'Dawdry' is Stephen Daldry
'Emmerick' is Roland Emmerich
'Legazelmo' is John Leguizamo
'Chamblade' is Jacob Tremblay
'Hunk Shu' is a running Hunk Shoe bit (honk shoo, sleep sound), not a name
'Fig' / 'Feegan' is Paul Feig
'Nora's a Hetner' is Nora Zehetner

Blank Check — Patreon: Doctor Sleep

As extracted (engineer-sonnet-2026-10-13)

Added from the extractor's memory, not said

Films that came up

subject (1)

anecdote (5)

passing (83)

recommended (1)

compared (7)

Claims (33)

Fun items (19)

Who's talking

The show's recurring bits

Names the transcriber got wrong