The Lawnmower Man is a 1992 science fiction horror film directed by Brett Leonard, written by Leonard and Gimel Everett, and starring Jeff Fahey as Jobe Smith, an intellectually disabled gardener, and Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Lawrence "Larry" Angelo, a scientist who decides to experiment on him in an effort to give him greater intelligence by stimulating his brain using nootropic drugs and virtual reality computer simulations.

The experiments give Jobe superhuman abilities, but also increase his aggression, turning him into a man obsessed with evolving into a digital being.

The film was originally marketed as the adaptation of a 1975 short story by Stephen King, which featured a Pan-worshipping satyr using his mystical powers to operate a landscaping business and mow lawns.

Allied Vision began developing the film after a planned adaptation of King's book Night Shift (1978), an anthology the story was published in.

However, it struggled to expand King's original story into a feature film and instead rewrote an unrelated screenplay entitled CyberGod into an adaptation.

The final film bears little resemblance to the original story beyond a single sequence of the antagonist telekinetically using a lawn mower to murder a character named “Harold Parkette.”[7] Because of the deviation from his story, King successfully sued to have his name removed from the film, which was originally titled Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man.

One of his test subjects, a chimpanzee named Rosco, gains enhanced intelligence, warfare training, and increased aggression; he eventually escapes but is killed by the laboratory's security forces.

In response, Angelo decides to recruit Jobe Smith, an intellectually disabled gardener, as a new test subject, promising him increased intelligence.

Feeling responsible for Jobe's fate, Angelo enters virtual reality, attempting to reason with him one last time, even if it means dying together.

The plot of Stephen King's 1975 short story "The Lawnmower Man" concerns Harold Parkette, who hires "Pastoral Greenery and Outdoor Services Inc." to cut his lawn.

Edward and Valerie Abraham wrote a screenplay for an anthology film adapting “The Lawnmower Man,” “The Mangler,” and “Trucks” revolving around the theme of humanity's relationship with technology.

Dino De Laurentiis purchased the rights to the screenplay in 1984 with the intention of making a series of King anthology films beginning with Cat's Eye (1985).

[7] Meanwhile, director Brett Leonard and producer Gimel Everett wrote an original screenplay about virtual reality technology titled Cyber God.

The new screenplay carried minor elements of King's original story, including the scene where Jobe kills Peter's father with the lawnmower "Big Red", and the aftermath in which the police state that they found some of his remains in the birdbath.

The film has several elements in common with the 1959 Daniel Keyes novel Flowers for Algernon, which also deals with a mentally disabled man whose intelligence is technologically boosted to genius levels.

[11] The scene where the priest is set on fire is an early use of motion capture, and was done by an Italian company who used the technology as a tool for golf training.

The film was tested in Jacksonville, Florida, Fresno, California, and Providence, Rhode Island on February 14, 1992[5] and released in the United States on March 6, in 1,276 theatres.

The site's consensus states: "The Lawnmower Man suffers from a predictable, melodramatic script, and its once-groundbreaking visual effects look dated today".

[18][19][2] It went on to gross $32.1 million in the United States and Canada,[2] making it the highest-grossing independent film for the calendar year[20] and the second biggest released in 1992 after Miramax's The Crying Game.

[5] New Line Home Video simultaneously released the 108-minute theatrical version of the film and an unrated 142-minute director's cut on VHS and LaserDisc on August 26, 1992.

As before, the court upheld the two prior judgments, but it took the extra step of imposing a penalty of $10,000 directly payable to King for every day New Line remained in contempt by defying the order.

The two-disc set includes new 4k digital restorations of the theatrical and director's cuts, audio commentary with director Brett Leonard and producer Gimel Everett, an all-new retrospective documentary featuring Leonard and star Jeff Fahey, and all of the bonus features from the original New Line DVD.