Associated Press
The escape of two inmates from an upstate New York prison has drawn comparisons to “Shawshank Redemption.” One of the people making the connection: Stephen King.
The fictional 1994 movie is based on a novella by the author. In it, inmate Andy Dufresne painstakingly whittles away at his cell wall with a hammer and crawls through a sewer line to escape.
Over the weekend, authorities say, real-life escapees David Sweat and Richard Matt used power tools to cut through steel walls in their cells. Officials say they cut through a steam pipe and emerged in a manhole cover on a street.
In a tweet Wednesday, King acknowledges the escape at the state prison in Dannemora “was a bit like Shawshank.”
His explanation? “Sometimes life imitates art, that’s all.”
But he also notes one difference. He calls the real-life escapees “bad, bad boys.”
Okay, the Dannemora break was a bit like Shawshank. Sometimes life imitates art, that’s all. Except these are bad, bad boys.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) June 10, 2015