The ultimate escape room awaits in Room 1408!
Join BP, Coop and Justin as we discuss 1408, the 2007 film adaptation of the Stephen King short story starring Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack
Spoilers ahead!
Mike Enslin is a cynical and skeptical author of niche books debunking supernatural events, in which he has no belief. While promoting his latest book, he receives an anonymous postcard depicting The Dolphin, a hotel on Lexington Avenue in New York City, bearing the message: "Don't enter 1408." Viewing this as a challenge, Mike travels to The Dolphin and requests room 1408. The hotel manager, Gerald Olin, attempts to discourage him. He explains to Mike that in the last 95 years, no one has lasted more than an hour inside of 1408; the latest count is 56 deaths. Olin attempts to dissuade and even bribe Mike, but at Mike's insistence and threat of legal action against the hotel, preparations are reluctantly made.
While Mike describes the room's boring appearance and absence of supernatural behavior on his mini-cassette recorder, the clock radio suddenly starts playing The Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun", and the digital display changes to a countdown starting from 60:00. Mike begins to see ghosts of the room's past victims, along with flashbacks of his deceased daughter Katie and his terminally ill father. Mike makes numerous attempts to leave the room, all in vain.
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In November 2003 and 2004, Dimension Films optioned the rights to the 1999 short story "1408" by Stephen King. The studio hired screenwriter Matt Greenberg to adapt the story into a screenplay.
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 79% based on 175 reviews, with an average rating of 6.70/10. The site's critical consensus reads "Relying on psychological tension rather than overt violence and gore, 1408 is a genuinely creepy thriller with a strong lead performance by John Cusack." On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 64 out of 100, based on 27 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.
In its opening weekend, the film opened in second place at the box office, grossing US$20.6 million in 2,678 theaters. 1408 had a production budget of US$25 million. The film went on to gross US$132 million, of which US$71.9 million was from Canada and the United States.
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