FAQ

Due to The Lawnmower Man movie being significantly different from the Stephen King short story entitled "The Lawnmower Man", Stephen King sued New Line Cinema (and its parent company Allied Vision) to disassociate himself from this film version. King claimed that by falsely crediting him, Allied had maliciously tarnished his good name, causing "irreparable harm" to his reputation.

The courts ruled in favour of King, and ordered Allied Vision to strike King's name from the credits and all related advertising. After Allied Visions lawyers made an appeal, the judge ruled that the works were substantially similar, justifying a "based upon" credit.

Although the final decision was partially in favour of Allied, they removed all references to Stephen King, including the "based upon" credit, when the movie hit the video market.

This Sci-Fi movie from 1992, starring Pierce Brosnan and Jeff Fahey, has nothing to do with the original short story written by Stephen King and released as a part of his book "Night Shift". Stephen King sued the producers several times for using his name as an advertisement for the movie, even though it differs immensely from his original work. Four years later they released a rather dull sequel which starred a different cast of actors. It barely had anything to do with the first movie.

The Theatrical Version misses out on 33 minutes of footage that result from either short or pretty long cuts, or the usage of alternative footage. Whether you prefer the Director's Cut or the Theatrical Version is up to you to decide. Despite the immense runtime, the Director's Cut seems to offer a more interesting version of the movie. Outside the UK and a few other European countries it is hard to get the Theatrical Version anyways. The US DVD includes a few deleted scenes in the bonus section and we assume that these are the scenes which ended up in the Director's Cut.

No. Despite the title, the movie is based on an original script written by Brett Leonard and Gimel Everett originally titled Cyber God. New Line Cinema held the rights to adapt Stephen King's story and decided to combine the two stories. However, the movie bears little to no resemblance to the short story. The only similarities are the mower moving on its own that kills a person who's remains are found in a birdbath and name of the gardening company. The movie was originally promoted as Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man, but King successfully sued the producers into removing his name. The story is actually closer to Flowers for Algernon, which concerns a mentally disabled person becoming a genius due to an experiment. The Shop, the organization responsible for the experiments, is from Stephen King's Firestarter and also deals with the group giving powerful psychic powers to someone.