I read a couple of the unproduced remake scripts. The first was by David Kajganich and dated 2005, and was pretty solid. It made some changes, like upping the ages the of the kids and swapping some things around in the third act, but worked very well and was reverent to the themes and ideas of the book. It's also a lot better than Kajganich's other unproduced King adaptions. His version of It was undermined by having to compress the entire story into two hours, and his take on The Stand was just plain bad.
The second, a Matt Greenberg draft from 2010, was... not good. It made some downright bizarre changes, like completely altering Pascow's role in the plot, changing Jud's character quite a bit, and making Norma into a goddamn possum. It also pulled the same switch that's in the trailer, and it worked surprisingly well up until the ending turned into a total cop out. It's a real shame, seeing how Greenberg also wrote 1408, which is an excellent King adaptation. So personally, I'm now slightly more favorable inclined towards the film we're getting now that I know how bad it could have been.
