Variety is reporting that The Stanley Hotel, the Colorado-based resort that served as the inspiration for Stephen King’s bestselling novel The Shining, might be getting partially transformed into a horror museum, courtesy of Elijah Wood and Simon Pegg. The two actors are both on the founding board of the Stanley Film Center, which hopes to transform the site into a museum, as well as a film archive and production studio. (The museum is currently the site of the Stanley Film Festival, an annual festival for horror.)
Not to be confused with the Timberline Lodge, where Stanley Kubrick filmed exteriors for his 1980 adaptation of King’s book, the mostly vacant Stanley inspired the nightmares that gave rise to the author’s work. Later recounting his experiences at the closing-for-the-season hotel—where he and his wife were the only guests, served dinner in an empty dining room while orchestral music played over the speakers—King told interviewers, “I mean, it was like God had put me there to hear that and see those things.”
The Stanley Film Center is currently seeking funds to make the Center a reality; it’s hoped that the museum and the hotel’s association with King will drive tourism to the site. (If it works, we can only hope for other King-based attractions, like an It-themed sewer ride where everything floats, or The Dark Tower: a 70-hour, grueling slog that ends with a kick to the teeth before depositing you exactly where you first began.)