‘The Shining’ Sequel ‘Doctor Sleep’ Adds ‘Mission: Impossible’ Star Rebecca Ferguson
The ShiningsequelDoctor Sleepis addingMission: Impossible – Rogue NationstarRebecca Fergusonto the cast. Ferguson will join co-starEwan McGregorin the film based on the novel byStephen King.Mike Flanagan’sDoctor Sleepcontinues to attract exciting cast members.Varietyis reporting that Rebecca Ferguson, who stole the show inMission: Impossible – Rogue Nationand will next be seen inMission: Impossible – Fallout, has joined the cast of the horror film.Doctor Sleepis based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, and is the official sequel to King’s iconicThe Shining.
Ferguson will star alongside Ewan McGregor. McGregor is playing the grown-up Danny Torrence, the kid with psychic abilities fromThe Shining. At this time, it’s not clear which character Ferguson is playing, but there are several possibilities:
If Ferguson is playing a character from the novel, I’m hoping it’s Rose the Hat, simply because the other two mentioned characters are both dead for most of the events of the novel. It would be a shame to waste Ferguson on a throwaway part like that. Of course, if I’m being honest, I hope Ferguson is playing a brand-new character because Ireallywant Mike Flanagan to stray away from King’s novel as much as possible. I’m a huge King fan, and I like or love the majority of his books, butDoctor Sleepis one of the worst things he’s ever written. Here’s the book’s synopsis.
On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless—mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and tween Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the “steam” that children with the “shining” produce when they are slowly tortured to death.
Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant “shining” power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.”
Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of hyper-devoted readers of The Shining and wildly satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon.
It will be interesting to see how Flanagan approaches this film overall. I’d argue that the majority of the movie-going public knowsThe Shiningfrom Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation. But Kubrick’s film famously (or infamously, if you ask Stephen King) changed most of King’s story. Will Flanagan’sDoctor Sleepserve as more of a sequel to Kubrick’s film, or will it serve as a sequel to King’s novel? Time will tell.
Doctor Sleepopens onJanuary 24, 2020.Update:Director Mike Flanagan has confirmed that Ferguson is indeed playing Rose the Hat:
Rose 🎩https://t.co/7aPes36D9E
— Mike Flanagan (@flanaganfilm)July 12, 2025
