Over his long and illustrious career, Stephen King has written countless classic horror novels. One of those classic novels is Misery, which was published by Viking in 1987. At the center of the novel is the relationship between novelist Paul Sheldon and his deranged fan, Annie Wilkes. One day, after a drunken Paul crashes his car in a remote Colorado mountain town, injuring himself, Annie finds him. Paul, who has just finished writing the ending to Annie's favorite series, badly injures himself and is unable to move around, forcing him to rely on Annie. But Annie doesn't have Paul's best interests at heart. Even though both of his legs are broken, she refuses to bring him to the hospital, thinking she can heal them herself with a mix of her limited medical knowledge and pain pills. Annie forces Paul to write books for her and forcefully encourages him to make his novel align with her whims and worldview. In the end, Annie dies and Paul escapes, but his life is never the same because of his trauma and addiction to alcohol and painkillers.
As a result of the novel's critical and financial success upon its publication in 1987, King's novel was adapted into a film of the same name in 1990. Directed by Rob Reiner, the film received rave reviews, became a financial success, and earned actress Kathy Bates an Academy Award for portraying Annie. Like the novel on which it was based, the film continues to be widely watched around the world to this day.
