The film is based on Stephen King's novel of the same name, Misery (domestically translated as "Number One Book Fan"). It mainly tells the story of best-selling novel author Paul, who is on his way to finish his new work and prepare for the delivery of his new work, when the car gets out of control and has a traffic accident. Luckily, Annie, a nurse, survived, and Annie took good care of Paul and claimed to be his number one book fan. But as time went by, Paul felt like everything was starting to get out of the ordinary.
In Stephen King's original novel, Annie cut off Paul's foot to prevent him from escaping. Screenwriter William Goldman decided to adapt the book into a movie because of this terrible scene, and he wanted to see how the audience would react when they saw it. But director Rob Reiner changed the script, changing the way paul was tortured, breaking his ankle with a sledgehammer. The screenwriter was opposed to the change until he saw the film and didn't say anything more.
Originally, the heroine of "Ten Days in Danger", Annie, was the primary candidate for the role of Annie, but she refused. At the Following Year's Academy Awards, Angelica Houston was nominated for Best Actress for Deadly Gamble, but she lost to Kathy Bates, who played Annie in Ten Days of Danger. Kathy Bates became the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Actress in a horror thriller with the role of Annie. When Kathy Bates won the Oscar and gave her speech, she humorously said, "I want to apologize publicly to James Kahn [the male lead in the film]. ”
Jack Nicholson was originally the lead candidate for male lead paul sheldon, but after filming Stanley Kubrick's The Shining a decade ago, Jack Nicholson didn't want to experience horror again in a film based on another horror novel by Stephen King. According to screenwriter William Goldman's book "Four ScreenPlays", the male protagonist of "Ten Days of Danger" has considered the following candidates: Morgan Freeman, Mel Gibson, Michael Douglas, Harrison Ford, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Bruce Willis and others, but all of them refused.
It is said that there was originally a scene in the film where Annie, played by Kathy Bates, repeatedly runs over the human body with a lawn mower to kill a young policeman, but this shot is cut by director Rob Reiner. Kathy Bates was very disappointed, and the director explained that he cut the shot out because he was afraid the audience would laugh when they saw it.
Although most of the scenes in this film are indoors, the production cost is not low, reaching 20 million US dollars, and it should be known that the cost of the large-scale film "Godfather 3" in the same year was 54 million US dollars.
Because Stephen King's previous novels were not very successful in adapting them into movies, the producers approached William Goldman to write the screenplay as a screenwriter before filming began.
The novels of the male protagonist Paul Sheldon were published by Viking, and Stephen King's own novels were published by this press.
In the cast column at the end of the film, the pig named Misery in the movie also has a place in the credits, and it is written: "Misery the pig - herself".
In one clip of the film, the store video is "When Harry Meets Sally," which was also shot by director Rob Reiner.
There's a line in the film that goes like, "There's a guy who went crazy in a nearby hotel." This refers to another film based on Stephen King's novel, The Shining.