Have you ever walked out on a film? Of course you have. We all have. I fondly remember struggling through the first barely-lit 20 minutes of Eragon in 2006 before calling it quits. Judging by the reviews, it was the best decision I’ve ever made. 

It turns out even blockbuster writers like Stephen King don’t have the patience for some films. After fellow novelist Linwood Barclay tweeted, “Jurassic World Dominion has the distinction of being the first movie I’ve walked out on in years,” King revealed the only film that he couldn’t make it through.

“I have walked out of only one movie as an adult: TRANSFORMERS,” he wrote, the all caps presumably emphasising his disgust at the film.

Did he mean Michael Bay’s big budget bonanza version or the beloved animated Transformers though? “Michael Bay. The first one,” he said when someone asked him that key question.

That means that Stephen King has even sat all the way through Stanley Kubrick’s big screen version of his novel The Shining, despite being very outspoken against the adaptation.

“I think The Shining is a beautiful film and it looks terrific and as I’ve said before, it’s like a big, beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside it. In that sense, when it opened, a lot of the reviews weren’t very favourable and I was one of those reviewers. I kept my mouth shut at the time, but I didn’t care for it much,” King once said.

He also probably isn’t planning on seeing Bay’s latest bombastic creation, the Jake Gyllenhaal-starring Ambulance, which was released earlier this year. Despite some criticism, it’s earned the director some of the most positive reviews of recent years, particularly for the thrilling action sequences.

For more on this topic, follow the Film & TV Observer.

Check out the trailer for Transformers:

Get unlimited access to the coverage that shapes our culture.
to Rolling Stone magazine
to Rolling Stone magazine