![]() ![]() Todd purchases an SS uniform from a costume shop, and forces Dussander to wear it. However, the teenager is fascinated with Nazi atrocities perpetrated during World War II, and forces Dussander to share disturbing stories of what it was like working at Nazi extermination camps, and how it felt to participate in genocide. Todd blackmails Dussander by threatening to turn him in to the police. In Southern California in 1984, 16-year-old high school student Todd Bowden (Renfro) discovers that his elderly neighbor, Arthur Denker (McKellen), is in reality Kurt Dussander - a former Sturmbannführer in the SS who is now a fugitive war criminal hiding from justice. The main actors won several minor awards for their performances. The film was released in the United States and Canada in October 1998 to mixed reviews and made under $9 million. Singer called Apt Pupil "a study in cruelty" with Nazism only serving as a vehicle for the capacity of evil.ĭuring the $14 million production, a lawsuit was filed by several extras who alleged that they were told to strip naked during a shower scene, but the lawsuit was determined to be without merit. The director shortened the novella's storyline, reduced its violence, and changed the ending. With King's support, Singer filmed Apt Pupil with McKellen and Renfro in Altadena, California, in 1997. In 1995, when rights to the novella returned to King, Bryan Singer petitioned the author for an opportunity to adapt the novella. Forty minutes of usable footage existed, but production was never revived. When filming began in 1987, a loss of financing led to the production being shut down. Producer Richard Kobritz sought to adapt the novella into a film during the 1980s, but two actors he invited to play Dussander died. ![]() The novella was first published in King's 1982 collection Different Seasons. ![]()
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