2000–present
In 2000 Dollar Babies came back into the public eye when Los Angeles based filmmaker Jay Holben made an adaptation of "Paranoid: A Chant," a 100-line poem that appears in Skeleton Crew. Paranoid was the first Dollar Baby to be released with King's permission for a limited time on the Internet in 2002. Again with King's permission, the film was then the first Dollar Baby released on a commercial DVD, in a package with Total Movie Magazine, a short-lived offshoot of the immensely popular UK publication Total Film. King fans clamored to download the eight-minute film, and then clamored for more.
In September 2004, fellow Dollar Baby James Renner ("All That You Love Will Be Carried Away") put together the first public film festival presentation of Dollar Babies. The festival was held in the D. P. Corbett Business Theater at the University of Maine, Orono, Stephen King's own Alma Mater (1966–1970) where he wrote for The Maine Campus newspaper. Renner followed the festival with a second incarnation in September 2005 at the same location. http://www.dollarbabyfilmfestival.com
On the Internet, the largest public collection of the Dollar Babies has been put together by Bernd Lautenslager from the Netherlands. Many of the films listed above were available for download at a site called "Stephen King Short Movies", but at the request of Stephen King's representatives, the films are no longer available for download. To date, the only short specifically granted permission to play for a limited time on the Internet was Paranoid.
In October 2009, director/producer J.P. Scott completed the very first full length dollar baby. His adaptation of "Everything's Eventual" tells the story of a young man with mysterious powers who gets recruited by an equally enigmatic corporation. Shortly after receiving a copy of the movie, Stephen King viewed the film and was "very impressed" by it. So much so that he granted J.P. Scott the rights to theatrically distribute the film. The only other time commercial distribution rights have been given to a dollar baby was with Frank Darabont's "Woman in the Room" was released as part of a collection of short films based on King's work.
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