Transcript
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Speaker: Welcome to Adaptation, the book to movie podcast.
Speaker: I'm Nate.
Speaker: And I'm Chris.
Speaker: And today we are talking about Stephen King's absolutely bonkers 2025, yet several book and story to movie adaptations happen.
Speaker: Before we dive into that discussion, Chris, how are you?
Speaker: Yeah, I'm good.
Speaker: I'm wonderful.
Speaker: Nice crisp fall day here.
Speaker: What have you been up to?
Speaker: Just getting ready for the holidays.
Speaker: So happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate, I guess.
Speaker: Have you been reading any books lately, Chris?
Speaker: What on earth have I been reading?
Speaker: Oh, well, prepping for the next one.
Speaker: In case anybody doesn't know, Wicked, this is the second movie coming out and they split the book that it is adapted from in half.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And we obviously did not have this podcast when the first one came out.
Speaker: So I'm doing some double duty here, getting caught up.
Speaker: So I've been working my way through that.
Speaker: And a fun little series that I've been away from for a long time.
Speaker: I started book five, but that's all I'm going to say for now.
Speaker: And I'll share a little bit more when I finish it between this and the next episode, because it's a delightful little morsel for some people to grab onto, but it also takes some explanation.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Next time I will get that book more.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Fantalizing.
Speaker: You've been, you've still been busy watching.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There, I feel like hot,
Speaker: hot flicks are coming out left, right and center.
Speaker: They are.
Speaker: And like I said, I think in our last episode, it's award movie season.
Speaker: So I'm at the theater quite a bit.
Speaker: So I'm just going to do another rapid fire.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So The Running Man, which we'll talk about later here in this episode.
Speaker: I got to see Hamnet a little bit early.
Speaker: Incredible movie.
Speaker: We'll talk about that in a later episode as well as we get closer to the Oscars.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: A couple of Netflix movies, Novelle Vogue, which is a French film that's, it'll be really fun for movie nerds.
Speaker: It's about the making of a famous French movie.
Speaker: So I liked it.
Speaker: I think a lot of people will find it boring, but I liked it.
Speaker: Train Dreams is another Netflix film and actually an adaptation of a novella that we might want to get to at some point because it was a really strong, beautiful movie.
Speaker: Yeah, put it on the list.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Sentimental Value is a really big Norwegian film this year.
Speaker: Loved it.
Speaker: It's fantastic.
Speaker: And then also very recently saw Wicked for Good.
Speaker: And I'm going to save my thoughts on that one for our next episode.
Speaker: So busy.
Speaker: Lots of movies.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Blair and I went and saw Frankenstein.
Speaker: Oh, right.
Speaker: What do you think?
Speaker: incredible you liked it good not a fan of the changes that they made sure i am actively displeased with some of the changes that they made wow wow i think it was to the detriment of the story which is a strength to them that it's still such a cool movie i just it's a little bit of a shame to me there are some parts that i don't understand why they chose to stray from the originals
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's going to be a conversation that we have maybe a few times over the next few months, particularly with Wicked and Wuthering Heights in February, I think, because that's kind of a common theme in adaptation right now.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Especially, I think, in the critical analysis of them is trying to navigate sort of on the receiving end, navigate why they did it that way.
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: And I know it's often there's a pragmatic reason.
Speaker: In this case, we have now discussed in multiple episodes Guillermo del Toro's vision and how he chose to interpret, you know, so I understand.
Speaker: And I do not want to be just another book lover that's knee-jerk reaction.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Well, the book's better because it's a book.
Speaker: You know, that is not what I think.
Speaker: I would imagine exactly what you said.
Speaker: There's probably good explanation.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: For many of these changes, I just, yeah.
Speaker: But fantastic movie.
Speaker: Super fun.
Speaker: I'm glad you guys saw it, and you saw it in a theater too, right?
Speaker: Yeah, really cool.
Speaker: This old theater across from the park right by our new place.
Speaker: It's only four rows of seats, and the waiter comes through throughout the night.
Speaker: You just put a little piece of paper up when you want another bowl of popcorn.
Speaker: It's fantastic.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: So we will be, I think it is our new haunt of choice in the neighborhood.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: I can't wait to visit and see a movie there.
Speaker: Yes, you're going to love it.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Should we talk about the man of the hour?
Speaker: Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker: Let's talk about Stephen King and all of his work that got adapted this year.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Basically, Stephen King has been working forever and has such a body of work that is so continuously adapted.
Speaker: Nate and I have elected to, rather than doing individual huge titles, because he has many, or...
Speaker: individual titles that have been adapted versus not or something again because he has many we'll just do year at a glance yeah here's what he did this year and even this was tough to get to all of it right yeah there's some there's a lot that you and i didn't even get to yeah it's crazy he was a busy guy this year yeah and he's and it seems that he is just one always a busy guy two he has been writing for a long time so only one of the three of these is a recent
Speaker: literary publication.
Speaker: And obviously, for the most part, it's not him sitting there and spearheading these adaptations.
Speaker: So we have this kind of wombo combo that he continues writing and other people continue mining through his decades of work to make modern adaptation.
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: So that's, that's at least my disclaimer, I think kind of our disclaimer of this is not exhaustive by any means, nor, I mean, if we started trying to do them one by one, the shining and misery in it, we would just become a Stephen King podcast.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Uh, so this is the approach we've chosen.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But obviously I'm not going to give the full author rundown that I usually do.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: just because we will be back to him at some point.
Speaker: So the real quick introduction to the man that, I mean, thankfully, everybody has heard of.
Speaker: If you're listening to this, you've heard of Stephen King.
Speaker: Born Stephen Edwin King in 1947 in Portland, Maine.
Speaker: Maybe you knew better than I did, Nate.
Speaker: I was shocked to see how old he was.
Speaker: I think I, I mean, I understood that he was old.
Speaker: He's been working for decades and decades, but yeah.
Speaker: Forever.
Speaker: The actual year of his birth is a little bit like, whoa.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, really, really shocked me.
Speaker: Also partially because I obviously don't look at pictures of Stephen King often.
Speaker: But to his credit, he has not physically appeared to age much in two or three decades.
Speaker: He kind of reached a point and settled in there.
Speaker: Which would make for a really good Stephen King story.
Speaker: A phenomenal story.
Speaker: A man that never ages.
Speaker: Sir, because obviously you're going to listen to this episode.
Speaker: You're welcome.
Speaker: A modest 5% royalties is all we ask.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What do we say about potentially one of, you know what, maybe this was the wrong way to put it, potentially one of the most famous, well, yes, that.
Speaker: Maybe most well-known or maybe most, you know, still actively working contemporary.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't have a good description.
Speaker: This is an author of such a magnitude.
Speaker: I told you a little bit about our mutual friend Colton that I used to work with in Colorado.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Has a copy of every single book King has ever written.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: God.
Speaker: I made the poor decision of saying yes to help Colton move.
Speaker: And this collection is just amazing.
Speaker: It looks crazy on paper.
Speaker: It looks unreal in person when you see the physical copy of every single one, just otherworldly.
Speaker: That's got to be a sturdy shelf for those books.
Speaker: Many, multiple shelves, multiple, multiple bookshelves.
Speaker: So because of this fame, we've left out much of the depth.
Speaker: We'll return to him later.
Speaker: Maybe I'll find some more info about his life each time.
Speaker: But the very abridged TLDR,
Speaker: His father went to World War II.
Speaker: I didn't really find it.
Speaker: Well, I didn't look for much information.
Speaker: I believe he was just a soldier in World War II.
Speaker: Maybe that's incorrect.
Speaker: Came back when Stephen was just two years old.
Speaker: Father left the family, abandoned them.
Speaker: His mother raised him and his older brother, David, I think.
Speaker: Bounced around the country a little bit, but at a very young age, started reading everything he could get his hands on and writing.
Speaker: So I think that's a big part of both.
Speaker: He is fairly old and in good health.
Speaker: So he's continued publishing and began publishing very early.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, well-rounded.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I found some, some very interesting quotes from him because I have three different books that I talk about in this episode.
Speaker: Some cool, you know, the author's forward at the beginning of the book.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And so this was him talking about this experience for himself.
Speaker: He said, it was so far as I could remember the first book with hands, strong ones that reached out of the pages and seized me by the throat.
Speaker: It said to me, this is not just entertainment, it's life or death.
Speaker: To me, Lord of the Flies has always represented what novels are for and why they are indispensable.
Speaker: So this is a quote, obviously, about he was very young, between seven and nine, if I remember correctly.
Speaker: He approached a teacher and said, give me a book that shows kids how they actually are.
Speaker: And the teacher went for Lord of the Flies.
Speaker: Yeah, which is...
Speaker: objectively the correct choice but a wild choice for if i remember correctly and he was seven years old right i don't know that i would do that but clearly a paradigm shifting moment for this very very successful author so maybe the right choice i don't know
Speaker: But I think seeing his thoughts so concisely, distinctly, immediately, this is life or death.
Speaker: This story has hands that reach out and grab you.
Speaker: I think that really says a lot about how he views what he's chosen to make a living at, you know?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Horror.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I meant the import of the written word, but yes, horror as well.
Speaker: Indeed.
Speaker: Yes, horror.
Speaker: almost certainly inaccurate, but just a brief by the numbers.
Speaker: I believe I counted 58 adaptations.
Speaker: That's got to be like half.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I doubt that that is accurate, but that's bonkers.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a lot.
Speaker: Movies, TV shows, I think I saw four video games, comic books, series, graphic novels.
Speaker: Just absolutely absurd.
Speaker: Absolutely absurd.
Speaker: His bibliography of just his personal works, because obviously, as we said, a lot of those adaptations are not his work, the adaptation.
Speaker: They're based on his writing.
Speaker: His personal bibliography, again, I would guess these numbers are low.
Speaker: This is as close as I could get quickly.
Speaker: Includes 65 novels, 12 story collections, which contain his over 200 books.
Speaker: published short stories.
Speaker: Good God.
Speaker: Absolutely crazy.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I saw that and I'm like, I've read 1% of the total short.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: Cool, bud.
Speaker: Five works of nonfiction, one on writing is also on many bestseller lists, very highly regarded beyond, you know, that he's primarily this horror fiction writer, right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: 19 screenplays, a very, very interesting miscellaneous or other section, including his comics, his graphic novels, his essays on other people's writings, and an entire opera libretto.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: I want to see that.
Speaker: I do, too.
Speaker: I would be very curious.
Speaker: Honestly, almost as much in his writing as who...
Speaker: wrote an opera and thought, you know who I want for my lyricist, Stephen King.
Speaker: Well, it's interesting too.
Speaker: I don't like music doesn't really stick out as a theme and in what I've consumed of his work.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Like it's, he's, I guess I'm saying the same thing.
Speaker: Like what a weird pick, what a weird zag.
Speaker: No, I agree with you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It makes me wonder, you know, was he interested and kind of introduced himself?
Speaker: Was he approached?
Speaker: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker: And, you know, the librettist is not, at least not that I saw, had anything to do with any of the music or, you know, necessarily the plot.
Speaker: They're the one who comes in and just writes the lyrics.
Speaker: Lyrics, yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, I'm very curious how that came to be.
Speaker: Yeah, almost certainly will not experience it anytime soon, but fun little factoid.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Prior to this episode, I tried to go back through, I had only read three Stephen King books.
Speaker: Okay, that's three more than me.
Speaker: Which three?
Speaker: So prior to this, I had read the first Dark Tower, which I cannot believe I didn't continue with that series.
Speaker: The Shining.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then 11-22-63.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That was yesterday.
Speaker: Whoa!
Speaker: That was yesterday.
Speaker: That's my dad's birthday.
Speaker: That's the book incredibly famous.
Speaker: It's kind of one of the earliest or maybe most famous, I don't know, I should not say earliest, novels of time travel to go and change history.
Speaker: Is it based on the Kennedy assassination?
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: 11-22-63 is the day Kennedy was shot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My dad was born on 11-22 several years after that, but interesting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: yeah because of what the story is about that's always my immediate thought i've never paid any attention to what the actual date was yeah i yeah i only know it because it's my dad's birthday and it's like one of those facts you know when you're born on that day it's like if your birthday is 4 20 they're like did you know until it's our way of his birthday yep yep yeah oh yeah i bet your dad heard about that for like a long time and maybe still does yeah
Speaker: So this, I had only read those three.
Speaker: And so preparation for this episode, two of the three are, of course, short stories.
Speaker: But still, this doubled my Stephen King consumption.
Speaker: We have kind of a couple of ways that we can skin this cat.
Speaker: I was thinking maybe we go chronological by publication.
Speaker: Is that okay with you?
Speaker: Yeah, that is fine.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So first up, again, by publication order, 45 years ago, King published The Monkey, a short story from the collection Skeleton Crew.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Cool title.
Speaker: It is cool, and it's a super cool, very ominous looking book.
Speaker: It's like 650 pages or something.
Speaker: Whoa.
Speaker: So do you read the whole, did you read that whole collection of stories or just the monkey?
Speaker: No, absolutely not.
Speaker: Absolutely not.
Speaker: I just read the monkey.
Speaker: I was going to say, woof.
Speaker: this book i wrote this down immediately when i finished it so i could not forget it feels like you stayed awake for 72 hours living on caffeine and nicotine oh my god and then stared at a stuffed animal in the corner for too long yeah i've that tracks actually that's pretty accurate you know yeah well and there's always been this conjecture or the um
Speaker: Like the accepted cultural truths that are not like lore, old wives tales, I don't know what.
Speaker: You know, that like a number of some of his most famous books were just written in like crazy 1980s coke binges.
Speaker: And he doesn't even remember writing them or something.
Speaker: So who knows?
Speaker: That could be exactly how he wrote The Monkey.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: I think a lot of the brilliance of this book lies in its brevity.
Speaker: And he kind of says something similar that we'll get to later.
Speaker: The writing in this novella, short story, whatever, is so rich and descriptive that I think were it a full-length novel, it would be exhausting.
Speaker: Okay, interesting.
Speaker: So I wrote this one quote down because I read it and you kind of get to the end of the sentence and just go, oof, like you need to reread a few times.
Speaker: And this was a fairly tame example.
Speaker: Outside, a cold gust of wind rose, and for a moment, lips with no flesh blew a long note through the old, rusty gutter outside.
Speaker: Goodness.
Speaker: The word flesh is like, I don't like that.
Speaker: There's a lot going on there.
Speaker: I mean, anything having to do with lips and a big, rusty piece of metal in the same sentence, it's just...
Speaker: Yeah, and I know what you mean.
Speaker: I need to hear that again because I got so distracted by some of the imagery that I don't know what he said.
Speaker: Exactly, exactly.
Speaker: Imagine reading 300 pages of that.
Speaker: It's untenable.
Speaker: This was very, very interesting to me.
Speaker: So he had a preface.
Speaker: These were written over time and then put together into the collection that was later published as Skeleton Crew, right?
Speaker: So in 84, he wrote a preface to this collection being published.
Speaker: That was very interesting.
Speaker: I really had to clip out a lot of parts that he said that I thought were humorous.
Speaker: But at the very end, the last page of this preface says, okay, commercial's over.
Speaker: Grab onto my arm now.
Speaker: Hold tight.
Speaker: We're going into a number of dark places, but I think I know the way.
Speaker: Just don't let go of my arm.
Speaker: And if I should kiss you in the dark, it's no big deal.
Speaker: It's only because you are my love.
Speaker: Now, I do want to be clear because I think that removes some context.
Speaker: Earlier in this same preface, he discusses some complaints he receives from...
Speaker: who he calls the constant reader.
Speaker: Had you heard this before?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: They're like Stephen King super fans.
Speaker: They have their own proper noun, constant reader.
Speaker: Capital C, capital R. Yes, correct.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: So I think this is, I had never heard of it before.
Speaker: I think this is like the people who would read anything he put out.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But he's receiving complaints at this point that he's putting out these short stories rather than more novels.
Speaker: The people want more novels, basically.
Speaker: And to that complaint earlier in the preface, he said, a short story is a different thing altogether, obviously.
Speaker: A short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger.
Speaker: That is not, of course, the same thing as an affair or a marriage, which he compares novels to in an equally strange way.
Speaker: But this is where the other reference came from.
Speaker: He said, but kisses can be sweet.
Speaker: and their very brevity forms their own attraction.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it was very interesting as a story in its own right, but also as this glimpse into how he views the place of the short story within the literary world.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's also quite clear you can almost see a dark, twisted,
Speaker: playfulness on his part with these type of stories.
Speaker: Indeed, I think there are interviews where he describes this as more or less his process.
Speaker: There's distinctly within the monkey one idea.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And it's a newer movie, so I don't necessarily want to spoil it in case people are still going to go see it, even though it was written four and a half decades ago.
Speaker: But you can see quite clearly just this tick of a thought that I think the rest of us would just dismiss.
Speaker: And he clearly sat down and thought, what could this be?
Speaker: And kind of tugged at that string in a delightful way.
Speaker: I think that's all I want to say about the plot.
Speaker: It is a dark, dark book.
Speaker: I'm very curious how they rendered this into film.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But certainly an enjoyable read.
Speaker: Okay, great.
Speaker: Yeah, this movie's had sort of an interesting long road to being made.
Speaker: Originally, the rights were optioned by Frank Darabont, a name that you might recognize because he wrote the 1994 film adaptation, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So it's just kind of interesting that we've got him popping up, and he'll pop up even later in this episode again.
Speaker: But the movie fell through after years of being stuck in development hell.
Speaker: It's just really...
Speaker: It's really tough to get a movie off the ground.
Speaker: It's kind of a miracle that any of them do.
Speaker: So it's pretty common for stories to sort of fall off after they hit too many obstacles.
Speaker: Eventually, a new adaptation is put into development in 2023.
Speaker: produced by James Wan, who's a really big name in the horror space right now, and directed by Osgood Perkins, who is a somewhat divisive director, but a mainstay in horror.
Speaker: He's actually got another movie in theaters right now called Keeper or The Keeper, something along those lines.
Speaker: Obviously, didn't see it, not that interested.
Speaker: But I think it was, I bring this up to just display that it was sort of a strong showing
Speaker: for this story that they got two fairly heavy hitters to bring the story to life here.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I see.
Speaker: Eventually the movie comes out in 2025, starring Theo James, Tatiana Maslany and Elijah Wood.
Speaker: It's distributed by Neon, which is an independent film company.
Speaker: Why are you making that face?
Speaker: Like Frodo Elijah Wood?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: He's got a really small role.
Speaker: Oh,
Speaker: Okay, sorry, sorry.
Speaker: Continue.
Speaker: I thought I heard you wrong.
Speaker: I was like... No, his role is really small.
Speaker: He's kind of just comedic relief in the movie.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But anyway, it was distributed by Neon, which is one of the bigger independent film studios.
Speaker: And they claim that this trailer is the most watched indie horror trailer of all time.
Speaker: I don't really know.
Speaker: That's so many sort of like qualifiers and asterisks.
Speaker: I don't really know how you... Pure conjecture.
Speaker: Yeah, but I wanted to bring it up because anticipation for this movie was really high, regardless of whether that's...
Speaker: a 100% true fact.
Speaker: I don't think that they could generate it without some modicum of accuracy.
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: You know, they made a handful of changes to the story, I think, in part to expand it into a full movie.
Speaker: It's a short story rather than a book, right?
Speaker: So they needed to make some changes.
Speaker: And also, they sort of shifted the tone of the
Speaker: movie as well.
Speaker: I still think it's very much in line with that stayed awake for days on coffee and cigarettes.
Speaker: But I wanted to share a little bit about this quote actually from Osgood Perkins to sort of contextualize how they framed this movie.
Speaker: He said, they had a very serious script, very serious.
Speaker: I felt it was too serious and I told them this doesn't work for me.
Speaker: The thing with this toy monkey is that people around it all die in insane ways.
Speaker: So I thought, well, I'm an expert on that.
Speaker: Both my parents died in insane headline making ways.
Speaker: I spent a lot of my life recovering from tragedy, feeling quite bad, and it all seemed inherently unfair.
Speaker: You personalize the grief.
Speaker: Why is this happening to me?
Speaker: But I'm older now and you realize that this shit happens to everyone.
Speaker: Everybody dies, sometimes in their sleep, sometimes in truly insane ways like I experienced.
Speaker: But everyone dies.
Speaker: And I thought maybe the best way to approach that insane notion is with a smile.
Speaker: Now, Perkins, I saw this quote and was like, what is he talking about?
Speaker: Insane deaths.
Speaker: His father died of AIDS and then his mother died in 9-11.
Speaker: So he is gracious, these two sort of wrecking ball experiences.
Speaker: So it is really interesting to me that he he was called to the story, which brief overview of the plot, I guess, would you call it a haunted toy?
Speaker: I don't know, a toy monkey.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, I don't know what else you would call it.
Speaker: I don't even know how to how to put it very succinctly.
Speaker: This toy chooses people to end up dying.
Speaker: It starts clapping its little symbols, and each time it does, something horrible happens to someone related to or important to whoever is there watching it do this.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Essentially, this one family has ended up in possession of this basically haunted demonic
Speaker: toys that selects people in the periphery to to die and in this movie the violence i don't want to call it gratuitous because obviously that was perkins goal but it is an insanely gory violent movie oh and he he wanted to make all of those changes and make it sort of comedic in order to make it stand out from other haunted toy movies like chucky and annabelle and and those things which are which are just pure
Speaker: horror, like slasher horror movies.
Speaker: I thought it was also interesting too that they did actually replace the symbols, like the musical instrument symbols with a drum because they thought, and I didn't really bother looking into whether this line of thinking was correct or not because it seems confusing and stupid to me, but they thought Disney owned the rights to the monkey with the symbols because a similar toy appeared in Toy Story 3.
Speaker: So they switched it to a monkey with a drum.
Speaker: Now, to your credit, the one from Toy Story 3, without me knowing, is absolutely what I was picturing the whole time I read this.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm sure it is.
Speaker: I just wonder, that's such a famous toy, and I don't really know if that comes from this...
Speaker: story, but I feel like that's a very famous image when you conjure images of old toys.
Speaker: So I just don't know that it would be possible to trademark that.
Speaker: The monkey is, uppercase letters, a musical jolly chimp.
Speaker: Okay, so somebody along the lines had trademarked that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Anyway, I just thought, again, kind of an interesting change to the movie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: To be able to tell it in the way they wanted to, because Disney absolutely would have not allowed, if they do own the rights, they would not have allowed...
Speaker: gory horror movie to be made out of one of their toys.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Mixed positive reactions.
Speaker: Some reviews I scrolled through Rotten Tomatoes really make me think that some of the viewers missed the point of the humor and excessive violence, which I think is easy to do.
Speaker: Like I said, I'm hesitant to use the word gratuitous, but when you talk about something like violence, I mean, there's some scenes that are just unbelievable that like you almost lose the thread a little bit.
Speaker: So I totally understand people missing it.
Speaker: And other detractors have called it sort of boring or without message or meaning.
Speaker: It doesn't have a lot to say.
Speaker: Like you said, it's sort of one note in the fact that it has this one idea that's driving it the entire time.
Speaker: It's a short story.
Speaker: It was a short story.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: The fans of the movie, however, call it fun and funny.
Speaker: And it is sort of just like a good romp.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, does it feel like what we talked about when they somehow
Speaker: air pumped the hobbit a fairly small book into three feature-length films that's what i'm picturing here from short story to a full-length film like can you tell they were kind of goose in it i guess not not so severe as something else we'll talk about later i think okay and certainly not as severe as the hobbit because that just did not need to be three movies yes okay
Speaker: But I did finish this movie and, and like, you know, when you like eat a meal and you still feel a little bit hungry afterwards.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: I guess I would compare it to that.
Speaker: Air pump inflation is a good metaphor for how they turn this into feature length movie.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But not, not terrible.
Speaker: It's not entirely the case.
Speaker: Stephen King is known for sharing pretty honest opinions about his adaptations.
Speaker: So I included some of the little nuggets that he's given for each of the movies that we'll talk about today.
Speaker: Of course, each of these are still sort of on the newer side and he has a vested interest in them performing well.
Speaker: So they might be a little bit sanitized or doctored or whatever, but I still thought it was kind of interesting.
Speaker: He said about the monkey, he said,
Speaker: I don't do tweet on threads.
Speaker: I don't know what the hell that's called.
Speaker: He threaded.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You've never seen anything like the monkey.
Speaker: It's batshit insane.
Speaker: As someone who has indulged in batshittery from time to time, I say that with admiration.
Speaker: So he seems to be pretty, pretty happy with the final product.
Speaker: That's phenomenal.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Funny guy.
Speaker: I have to imagine, because I saw, I saw no direct quotes one way or the other.
Speaker: just for the sheer quantity of his work that has been adapted, I have to imagine he has historically maintained a pretty open and liberal party line in terms of, you know, if he had been intensely...
Speaker: over observant or critical i have to imagine people would have stopped adapting his stuff at some point right yeah he's mostly interested in how faithful are they right he very famously does not like the movie adaptation of the shining and then ended up producing a mini series adaptation that is much more faithful so i don't think it's like super common for him to come out and trash something and my understanding is that when he does he sort of backs it up like but
Speaker: by producing the miniseries himself, you know?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: He doesn't kind of just sit around and whine.
Speaker: No, that makes sense.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and he's very involved in all of these movies as well.
Speaker: So, you know, I think it would be tough to like really go off the Stephen King rails.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: He's, he's, you know, part of it, but still clearly letting others develop this idea that they had.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Well, and he's sort of, he's a really good example of,
Speaker: Like we said, people studios mine and mine and mine, his archive of work.
Speaker: I mean, there's just few better examples of somebody that is like really connected with the culture.
Speaker: So like you might as well fricking listen to him.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: I think that's why he could be such a prolific fiction writer and still have, I mean, lots and lots of people turn to his blogs and lectures and interviews on
Speaker: what it means to be a successful modern writer yeah oh yeah he's kind of he's kind of one most famously and often pointed to for no this is a job like i sit myself down at my desk nine to five monday to friday like everybody else just minds at home and i'm writing about people getting murdered sounds cheery yeah that's the monkey what's what's next
Speaker: Yeah, so chronologically in publication order, next up is The Running Man from 1982.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Let's get sad.
Speaker: So of the three today, of the three that I read for today, this is the only full-length novel.
Speaker: And it's actually incredibly hilarious in, I believe this would be an ironic way.
Speaker: I don't feel super confident I'm using that correctly here.
Speaker: It's this future setting from when he published it.
Speaker: And I think all readers will share an agreement that it's not incredibly hilarious in, I believe this would be an ironic way.
Speaker: I don't feel super confident I'm using that correctly here.
Speaker: It's this future setting from when he published it.
Speaker: And I think all readers will share an agreement that it's not too far from where society has come in his fictional comical viewing of instead of TV, they call it the freebie.
Speaker: And that's because everyone gets it for free because it's like the fully accepted, deliberate opioid of the masses.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It made me think immediately a good buddy, the guitar player in a band I was in years ago, had a giant sticker on top of his TV that said, this machine kills hippies in imitation.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: Who's that folk guitar player?
Speaker: It's an imitation of them.
Speaker: Pete Seeger.
Speaker: Yes, this machine kills fascist sticker on his guitar, right?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah, so I thought it was just the first thing I thought of immediately.
Speaker: Yeah, freebie, everybody's just sucked in.
Speaker: They don't want to live their own lives.
Speaker: They just want to watch what's on.
Speaker: Oh, wait.
Speaker: Oh, wait, what's that?
Speaker: There's a ninth iteration of wealthy housewives in some city I don't go to, all probably committing insurance fraud and tax evasion.
Speaker: but I can watch an episode of how their new cat shits on their carpet.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sign me up.
Speaker: Sign me up 200 episodes a month.
Speaker: Can't wait.
Speaker: Sorry if that's crazy.
Speaker: Blair's Blair's going to listen to that and be very upset at me.
Speaker: I have no idea, but that, and that's not a fair example, but you know what I mean?
Speaker: The things that he posits in this as a, this horrific dystopian future are eerily accurate for here and now.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Um, throughout the entire thing, um, yeah, you kind of keep thinking that that doesn't sound that inaccurate.
Speaker: Uh, this guy's daughter is sick, the protagonist of the story.
Speaker: Um, and he wants his wife to not have to keep being a, um, sex worker to earn money, to buy meds for this kid.
Speaker: And this is what really, really the, the,
Speaker: rising action to this is disturbingly realistic.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because everyone goes, oh, your daughter has like, you know, this weird cancer or something.
Speaker: And he's like, no, it's just pneumonia.
Speaker: It's very treatable.
Speaker: But we have no money for the medications.
Speaker: And I'm like, this is happening in this country today.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he goes on this game show.
Speaker: And there he even references it himself in the book.
Speaker: It's essentially modern gladiatorial games.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: And not like American Gladiator, the phenomenal series that was out at the time this book was published.
Speaker: This is truly gladiatorial games.
Speaker: I think the first one he describes is...
Speaker: Everyone who wants to go on the game show goes through this rigorous set of physicals and health tests.
Speaker: And basically all of the people with weak hearts or respiratory problems are assigned to this show where they're running on a treadmill.
Speaker: And they're asked a question.
Speaker: They get it right.
Speaker: Cash bonus.
Speaker: They get it wrong.
Speaker: Cash deducted.
Speaker: Treadmill speed goes up.
Speaker: Double whammy.
Speaker: Damn.
Speaker: And they just run until they have heart failure or angina.
Speaker: And then the next one's brought in, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You look at it and you go, wow, that's heinous.
Speaker: And then you look at the things people are doing.
Speaker: I don't know if this is a one-to-one modern analogy, but I immediately think of the people doing astinine things on TikTok and Instagram reels to get views.
Speaker: And then suddenly, oh, that dumb current trend
Speaker: It immediately makes me think of things like this, where, no, perhaps this isn't their only option.
Speaker: You know, these are very dire straits.
Speaker: This guy has been blacklisted from work for dissenting, a tale as old as time.
Speaker: And has determined that going on this show and literally risking his life is the only way to make any money.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He ends up on a show where he's being chased by bounty hunters, basically.
Speaker: Yes, that's exactly it.
Speaker: Well, chased by all of society.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, right.
Speaker: Arbitrarily declared public enemy number one, let loose from the station, given a 12-hour head start, and then after that time, there are
Speaker: essentially the fbi bounty hunters professionals chasing him the police chasing him and the public is given a cash bonus if they send a tip leading to his arrest right not not an arrest for anything he did an arrest for signing up for the show and saying i will do this yep it's like taking out a life insurance policy on yourself
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: This money is to benefit his wife and daughter because his total goes up for every hour he eludes escape until they kill him.
Speaker: And then the check for whatever his total was that he earned is sent to his family that he leaves behind.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just insane.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I wasn't super excited about this book.
Speaker: It took me to that 50, 60 percent and then I could not put it down.
Speaker: I had to just read to the end.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I had a very similar experience when I read The Shining.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Really got pulled in.
Speaker: Really, King is famous for creating just this depth of worlds that you are... You can't look away.
Speaker: You are glued to.
Speaker: In a good way, obviously.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: The ending is crazy.
Speaker: I do not want to give it away.
Speaker: I believe...
Speaker: You said they changed it drastically for the movie, something to that effect?
Speaker: Yes, they did.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's all I want to give of the plot.
Speaker: It's fascinating.
Speaker: It really makes you sit down and look at the world around you in a very good way.
Speaker: I think made all the more poignant decisions.
Speaker: that it is not a recent publication that he wrote it 45 years ago.
Speaker: And it has gotten only more true and accurate.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No kidding.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It's harrowing to watch because like you said, you're like, yeah, this isn't,
Speaker: so far off, you know, there's like the major political players in the movie are, they call it the network and they have so much power that they, they basically run the military and the police and the, you know, societal norms and everything like that.
Speaker: And, you know, we're, we're very much seeing something sort of not, not quite as drastic, but Warner brothers is about to be purchased right now.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: which is one of the biggest studios out there with obviously television assets.
Speaker: And one of the major players in this potential purchase is Paramount, which is a company that's growing more and more in line with our current presidential administration.
Speaker: So it's really interesting to see how politics is playing into what should just be
Speaker: know non-partisan entertainment but of course it's it's got this growing influence so really harrowing and kind of kind of a tough watch i can understand why you said let's get sad uh to open this up this is actually uh the second time running man has been adapted to film the first was in 1987 starring arnold schwarzenegger
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A lot of people kind of laugh at the movie and laugh it off as like a crappy Schwarzenegger 80s action flick.
Speaker: We're not here to discuss that version, but I do want to mention it because I think I think it's not that bad.
Speaker: It's it's really ripe for sort of a re-adaptation because the concept is strong and just becomes more poignant as time goes on.
Speaker: It's just sort of the execution of that movie was was not great.
Speaker: So 2025 version was directed and co-written by Edgar Wright, who is mostly known for sort of high energy dramedies.
Speaker: You and I tend to like a lot of his movies like Hot Fuzz is a favorite of yours.
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You're right.
Speaker: Did Shaun of the Dead?
Speaker: I don't know if you've seen that one.
Speaker: Love fantastic.
Speaker: Baby Driver, Scott Pilgrim versus the world.
Speaker: It's he's very much a Nate and Chris coded writer director.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The movie stars Glenn Powell, who's really trying to assert himself as like a movie star right now.
Speaker: Sort of wants to be the next Tom Cruise, I think.
Speaker: Supporting cast is Josh Brolin, Coleman Domingo, William H. Macy.
Speaker: Michael Cera shows up for a little bit.
Speaker: And then several more.
Speaker: It's a real true ensemble movie because the nature of the story is that he's constantly moving and constantly coming across new people and places.
Speaker: So there's a lot of opportunity for people to sort of pop up for
Speaker: 10 or 15 minutes and do something crazy and probably die.
Speaker: This specific movie, like I said, it was always meant to be a much more faithful adaptation of the novel itself.
Speaker: And Wright insists that it's not a remake, but is a standalone production adaptation of King's story.
Speaker: Doesn't want any comparison with the previous adaptation.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Fairly divisive, whether you like it or not.
Speaker: It gets bogged down by some of the movie's flaws.
Speaker: It's really devoid of the Edgar Wright isms that we like from his other movies.
Speaker: So you'll see a lot of people call this movie like sauiceless or flavorless because it just it seemed like he was going to be the perfect director for this because it is such a zany, weird, wacky tale.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: The movie's just not, unfortunately.
Speaker: Other detractors pointed out that there's some real tonal confusion.
Speaker: The action is really poorly staged, which is kind of like unforgivable for an action movie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it's still one that you can kind of have a good time watching.
Speaker: I'm growing to hate the term turn your brain off, but it is sort of a good turn your brain off action movie.
Speaker: And I think the themes are sort of ham fisted.
Speaker: They're not subtle at all about fighting the powers that be.
Speaker: The network.
Speaker: The network, yeah.
Speaker: Zero subtlety there.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, is that the same in the book?
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: It's not subtle at all.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Well, you have no question who represents what in society.
Speaker: And I guess, I mean, subtlety, I don't know, maybe subtlety isn't the right word because this is one of two titles we'll talk about today that gets compared to The Hunger Games a lot because it is this
Speaker: competition to the death.
Speaker: I wouldn't necessarily call that a subtle text either because she literally goes to war against the president of her nation.
Speaker: But it's a socioeconomic caste system.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But because it's sort of set in this like sci fi world that like may or may not be America, it's a little bit takes a little more work to like map it onto your life.
Speaker: Whereas The Running Man, like you said, basically doesn't.
Speaker: We're in a world where television networks are starting to run things too much.
Speaker: Like it's it's just
Speaker: There is no real nuance, maybe nuances.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: The way to put it to the comparison between our world and the quote unquote fictional world of this story.
Speaker: Like you said, the ending was changed from the book, presumably to set up a sequel.
Speaker: Oh, I don't want to say too much.
Speaker: I feel like that's kind of spoils the ending of the movie to a degree.
Speaker: I really hope we don't get a sequel because it just, I think it was really well packaged as a solo story.
Speaker: And then on top of that, this movie was less than stellar.
Speaker: So I'm not really looking forward to second Running Man.
Speaker: But just wanted to mention that because I think it's interesting that the studio
Speaker: again, studio that owns a network, right, is sort of milking this.
Speaker: And I don't know, interesting.
Speaker: As far as King's reaction to this, what I was able to find is that he gave his permission to change the ending and that he said that he liked it, quote unquote, very much.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, like I said,
Speaker: This movie, he wants it to do well in theaters.
Speaker: So who knows if that's true, what he'll think in five, 10 years.
Speaker: I mean, not that the man needs any more money at this point, but think about it.
Speaker: That's the ultimate ROI.
Speaker: I put all the effort in to write a book and 45 years later, I'm going to get royalties on a sequel that I didn't write.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: That's...
Speaker: It'd be tough to shake a finger at the guy.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I mean, he's got kids probably, doesn't he?
Speaker: And like grandkids, maybe they'll never have to work if they keep making running mans for the rest of time.
Speaker: Gotta imagine they don't already.
Speaker: Goodness gracious.
Speaker: That's yeah.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Oh, to be a member of the King lineage.
Speaker: That was it on, uh, on the running man.
Speaker: And, and let's take a quick break.
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Speaker: Welcome back to adaptation.
Speaker: We are discussing Stephen King's adaptation or adaptations of Stephen King's works in the year 2025.
Speaker: I believe next on the list that we're going to go over is the life of Chuck.
Speaker: Chris, is that, is that correct?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Again, because I think, I know you have one more to discuss than I do.
Speaker: I could only get to three of the titles for this one, which is crazy that he's adapted more than three titles in one calendar year, but I know.
Speaker: Obviously books take a little bit more time to get through usually.
Speaker: This one was by far the shortest of the three.
Speaker: I think this audio book was a cover to cover for me.
Speaker: I think it was maybe two hours long.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Which I suppose is just what you do with every movie.
Speaker: I hadn't considered that comparison.
Speaker: I am curious how well it maps onto the script of the movie in that case.
Speaker: Very curious.
Speaker: Very curious.
Speaker: I'm so glad this was the third of the three I get to discuss.
Speaker: And it's not just dismal, dreary horror.
Speaker: This had an immediately, shockingly fresh, modern feel.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Published in 2020, so it's still not, wasn't immediately adapted.
Speaker: This did come out five years ago.
Speaker: Another short story in the collection, If It Bleeds, I believe.
Speaker: I think so, yeah.
Speaker: That sounds right.
Speaker: Very expressive and really kind of heartfelt, almost like moral driven ending to me.
Speaker: TLDR on this is a story about a dude who really digs dancing.
Speaker: That's it?
Speaker: I felt pretty good about that as a synopsis.
Speaker: I mean, I think you're missing some major, major plot points there.
Speaker: Yeah, we're going to talk a bit.
Speaker: I guess.
Speaker: No, it is surprising that this one is both the shortest of the three that I read and one of the more intricate plots.
Speaker: There was a very interesting quote for you and I from this one where he says,
Speaker: You know, it's like a daydream where you play pro baseball or climb Mount Everest or duet with Bruce Springsteen.
Speaker: I love the comparison.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I was like, yeah, that is exactly the daydream Nate and I would both have.
Speaker: Yes, it is.
Speaker: He also, this was, this is, I mean, one of, once again, every page had something that would be a quote worth discussing with a wider audience.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: Chuck, the protagonist, if anyone was wondering what the protagonist's name in the life of Chuck is, it's Chuck.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He quips, they're talking about this sort of need for answers, and he says, would answers make a good thing better?
Speaker: And all I could think about was...
Speaker: Perhaps this is only my feeling and I'm projecting at which point, screw off, I have the microphone, you don't.
Speaker: To me, this spoke very intimately to this powerful human experience to find comfort.
Speaker: Some people I know certainly nearly demand answers and explanations for everything.
Speaker: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah, I do.
Speaker: and I don't want this to be some soapbox, our society has lost its way sort of statement, but just the simplicity with which this character says, would this good thing be made better with further explanation?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which again, to me, and this is not what King said, but what I read from that is exactly the inverse.
Speaker: Can you not find joy in it if you lack...
Speaker: a certain level of control of the situation.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Which is exactly what, um, a significant chunk of the plot is built around that.
Speaker: I, I don't know how much we can discuss it without saying it explicitly, but if we can avoid it, I think it'd be cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cause there's really, uh, to, to, to some extent, that's the crux of Chuck's experience.
Speaker: This, I have no control over this one thing.
Speaker: And I can find considerable and profound joy exactly in that act by, by relinquishing that control entirely, letting go of the situation and saying, all right, that's done and dusted.
Speaker: Nothing I can do about it.
Speaker: So, so what's next?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that is such an intimately familiar thing.
Speaker: I'm going to argue for everybody.
Speaker: Oh yeah, totally.
Speaker: Totally.
Speaker: Because there's every realm in which he could sit and mope and feel sorry, and it wouldn't get him anywhere, right?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: The second fun reference for us in this book that I just sprinted to write down immediately to show you, because I presume even some of the most profound lines in these books don't make it verbatim into the films.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Chuck as the character when he's younger is introduced to mystery novels and he loves them.
Speaker: And it says he devoured 11 Agatha Christie's in a row.
Speaker: Oh, but very specifically, not a big fan of Miss Marple, but loved her.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I just thought that was so funny because I was like very fourth wall meta.
Speaker: I'm immediately not in a bad way, but I, as the reader was immediately pulled out of the story.
Speaker: and thinking about Stephen King as an author.
Speaker: What was the purpose of this reference that I think for a large part is going to go over audiences' heads?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I think that there's a direct correlation between the success of Agatha Christie and her somewhat formulaic and somewhat routine writing as an author and Stephen King years and years later doing the same thing in a different shirt, you know?
Speaker: I mean, at this point, being a renowned and published author for nearly the exact same amount of time that Agatha Christie herself was, I just sat back and smirked and thought, what are we doing here, Stephen?
Speaker: What are we doing?
Speaker: What are you saying about yourself?
Speaker: Like it's, it's kind of an introspective idea.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Cause I mean, in no way besides the authors themselves, would I, have I ever, or would I ever compare the writing that they produce besides a bunch of death, I suppose.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: I guess a lot of people die.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Chuck itself is,
Speaker: Again, it's such a short story.
Speaker: It feels like there are a few key, key moments that are difficult to include without spoiling the whole thing.
Speaker: But also, it's difficult to talk about much else due to its inherent brevity.
Speaker: But truly, so fast, so easy.
Speaker: I got through the audiobook just in a walk up to the supermarket and the laundromat, just doing some chores on a Saturday.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: I know we'll do recommendations later, but I don't want to talk too much about the plot.
Speaker: Well worth your time.
Speaker: Especially for me, having not seen the movie, I had no idea.
Speaker: Went into it completely blind.
Speaker: Hadn't seen a trailer, had not heard of the book till you told me it was an adaptation.
Speaker: And cause this, no, was this one of the ones that he wrote under that pen name?
Speaker: I don't know if he even uses it anymore because like the,
Speaker: Gig is up.
Speaker: I don't think so.
Speaker: I don't remember.
Speaker: I think he wrote it, published it under Stephen King.
Speaker: Absolutely fantastic.
Speaker: And to me, what was most shocking was quite outside of what I would consider King's wheelhouse.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: It's a super big departure from what people think of when they think of Stephen King.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: For the most part.
Speaker: Right, right, right, right, right.
Speaker: I'm not saying that his writing is devoid of moral value otherwise, but it almost felt like, you know, Lord Byron's challenge to Mary Shelley to write a ghost story.
Speaker: It was like Stephen King was at some buddy's 80th birthday in the Hollywood Hills and someone said, hey, have you considered writing a super positive, uplifting one with a fun, encouraging message?
Speaker: And he goes, hold my beer and pumps this out, you know?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Very cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Follows the life of Chuck in a, in a very whimsical and humorous way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Totally.
Speaker: Um, truly involving like kind of just a dude that digs dancing.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: He does like to dance.
Speaker: Um, yeah.
Speaker: How, how on earth did they manage to wrestle this into a feature length film?
Speaker: Yeah, well, like I said, I'm really curious that the audio book was about two hours.
Speaker: That's somewhat close to the movie's runtime.
Speaker: So I'm really interested how much was just kind of lifted, like copied and pasted.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It was adapted by Mike Flanagan, who is a iconic writer director in the horror space and has worked on King adaptations before Gerald's Game and Dr. Sleep, which is the sequel to The Shining.
Speaker: So very familiar with adapting Stephen King.
Speaker: It was not a surprise that he was the man behind this, except for the fact that much like this is a departure for Stephen King.
Speaker: It's also kind of a departure for, for Flanagan because he does so much horror.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like capital H horror stuff.
Speaker: The movie stars, Tom Hiddleston as the titular Chuck.
Speaker: I thought so.
Speaker: That's low key, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Jacob Tremblay as the young version of Chuck.
Speaker: Mark Hamill plays Chuck's grandfather.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: First of two mentions he'll get in this podcast as well.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know why he's so attracted to Stephen King stuff, but I've got plenty to say about Mark Hamill later.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then Chiwetel Ejiofor and Karen Gillan are kind of the other two
Speaker: names that have like significant roles.
Speaker: But this is another one where people kind of come and go from his life.
Speaker: And he encounters a lot of different people at different moments and for different lengths of time.
Speaker: So there's sort of an ensemble cast quality to this movie as well.
Speaker: So lots of names that I'm kind of skipping here.
Speaker: This one specifically premiered at Toronto International Film Festival, one of the bigger film festivals that's held every year.
Speaker: in 2024 so there's some debate as to whether it's technically a 24 or 25 movie i see in my not so humble opinion i don't really give a what year it comes out in the at the festivals it depends on when people can get to it yes us us regular peasants yeah exactly and it came out in
Speaker: June of 2025 in theaters, so well into the year.
Speaker: Anyway, it's just frustrating to me and it's why we included it here is because I feel so strongly about this.
Speaker: I bring up its TIFF premiere also because it won the People's Choice Award there.
Speaker: These festivals are usually sort of hosted by a jury of filmmakers that will give out a handful of awards to the movies that play at them.
Speaker: And oftentimes there is a People's Choice Award where the attendees, and TIFF is actually open
Speaker: to the public.
Speaker: It's just not in our country where we live.
Speaker: And I have a real job, so I can't go to TIFF.
Speaker: So the attendees get to vote on this People's Choice Award.
Speaker: The Life of Chuck ended up winning that award, which was a big deal because 99% of the time, that's not an exact figure, but pretty close.
Speaker: That's indicative of a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: This was also picked up by Neon, who did The Monkey, at TIFF.
Speaker: And they sort of decided to not really...
Speaker: run it for awards, a summer awards or a summer release date.
Speaker: Like I said, it came out in June is not awesome for running an awards campaign.
Speaker: A lot of movies sort of take over the conversation between then an award season.
Speaker: So pretty, pretty effectively killed its awards chances with that release date.
Speaker: And also because it completely bombed at the box office.
Speaker: People were not interested in this movie for whatever reason.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Yeah, I think it was pretty poorly advertised and, you know, they leaned into the fact that it was Stephen King, but it's kind of an anti Stephen King.
Speaker: So I can imagine a lot of people felt sort of conflicted about it.
Speaker: But the movie has very strong reviews.
Speaker: You don't win a People's Choice Award without
Speaker: at least moderately strong reviews.
Speaker: And a lot of people have really been drawn to it because it's very life affirming.
Speaker: It has very feel good moments and themes throughout, despite the fact that you do hit some pretty emotional lows watching it.
Speaker: But it's yes, yes.
Speaker: It's more about the upswing afterwards.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And the and the need.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: If you have no lows, then highs are meaningless.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Some people called it unrealistic.
Speaker: It is ultimately technically like a sci-fi story to some degree.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: There is a supernatural quality.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then the themes are pretty ham-fisted.
Speaker: When I saw, I don't know if you recall this, the episode this summer that we recorded after I saw this movie, I made a joke about the line, I contain multitudes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That's said like multiple times in...
Speaker: in the movie, which is just like, yep, we get it.
Speaker: We get it.
Speaker: So there's some of that.
Speaker: And then I also mentioned, I think, that there's a lot of exposition via narration in that movie, which is a kind of a lazy writing technique.
Speaker: It doesn't...
Speaker: work super well.
Speaker: It's a lot of telling instead of showing.
Speaker: So that's kind of what people had to say against the movie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: King again, this was especially because of its potential for awards.
Speaker: He was going to be nice to this one.
Speaker: He hasn't shared anything that I have found overtly about this movie.
Speaker: But Mike Flanagan did say that he shared a screener link so that Stephen King could watch it at home.
Speaker: He sent him a link to to watch this movie and he accessed the link seven times.
Speaker: So he's seen the movie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Multiple times.
Speaker: Or he doesn't know how to play it on his computer.
Speaker: I was like, he's like 80.
Speaker: He's like 87.
Speaker: Yeah, but that's it.
Speaker: Pretty simple.
Speaker: I don't have a ton to say about that one because it did kind of fall on its face a little bit.
Speaker: That's a shame.
Speaker: It's very interesting because I would actually say everything you described is exactly the same in the book, and it just comes off so differently in written form.
Speaker: Yeah, we'll get to it.
Speaker: a little bit later here, but I will share that I've I hated this movie.
Speaker: I've couldn't stand really.
Speaker: I'll share why later, but okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: One of my least favorites of the year.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: No, that's very interesting.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And I, I believe you've you have a number of them that I did not read.
Speaker: Is that correct?
Speaker: Yeah, I wanted to give a shout out to
Speaker: several actually just because there is so much that was adapted this year so i'm going to run through a handful that i didn't even get to see and then one that i did there were three short films produced this year or released this year that were adaptations of stephen king's stuff lt's theory of pets never heard of it nope mute never heard of it the reach never heard of it but
Speaker: You know, that's three of 200.
Speaker: So of course, you know, a couple of TV shows, one is airing right now.
Speaker: It Welcome to Derry is a prequel to it, which is the clown.
Speaker: Pennywise.
Speaker: Yeah, I have zero desire to watch this.
Speaker: So won't be doing so.
Speaker: But if it's your thing, it's on HBO Max.
Speaker: And then The Institute is a show on MGM+.
Speaker: I don't know who the hell has an MGM plus account, but go for it if you do.
Speaker: A teen genius wakes up in a strange place full of children who got there the same way he did and who all, like him, possess unusual abilities.
Speaker: Sounds pretty cut in print, Stephen King, to me.
Speaker: I very much intended to read this one and just simply did not get to it.
Speaker: Oh, well.
Speaker: Put it on your TBR, I guess.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And then the final feature-length film that I wanted to talk about was The Long Walk, which is based on, I believe, a full-length novel as well from Stephen King that was published in 1979.
Speaker: So actually the oldest, I believe.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: The ones that we talked about today.
Speaker: Much like...
Speaker: The Monkey, it went through several rounds of development and just stalled out, like I said, over and over and over again.
Speaker: Once again, a Frank Darabont shout out in 2007, he tried to adapt it and again, just fell through for various reasons.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: It's kind of interesting that that's happened to him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I want to give him a hug.
Speaker: He's had a rough run on this podcast.
Speaker: Are you good buddy?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Eventually they managed to make the movie.
Speaker: JT Molnar wrote the script and Francis Lawrence directed.
Speaker: Francis Lawrence is mostly known for directing most of the Hunger Games movies.
Speaker: Again, that's interesting because this book has some real strong parallels as well, which I'll explain here in a second.
Speaker: I say this is similar to the Hunger Games because the conceit of this is for the plot, I guess, is I guess it's 50 young men, one from each
Speaker: state in the nation in this post-apocalyptic United States embarks on a long walk from coast to coast is the idea.
Speaker: And they're, they can't stop.
Speaker: They can't drop below a certain speed or they're killed by the military that are following them.
Speaker: So it's, again, it's like young people competing and the winner gets in the movie, at least they get like one wish granted.
Speaker: Along those lines, you can see why it's similar to the hunger games, young people competing to the death in a sort of fascist authoritarian state.
Speaker: And the idea is that this long walk is an annual tradition because it inspires workers like they work harder afterwards, which the logic to me doesn't totally line up, but whatever.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: movie stars cooper hoffman dennis johnson ben wang mark hamill is the authoritarian military leader big stephen king guy i guess i i guess i mean he's talked about how in recent years it's it's been tough for him to find like solid work he's actually a pretty prolific voice actor but it's hard for him to find work in live action i think that it's always been hard for him to shake the luke skywalker of it all yep and you know he's never gotten great reviews as a as an actor either so i
Speaker: He said that it was just sort of an interesting year for him to be offered both of these projects.
Speaker: And he just absolutely couldn't say no because it was against type to sort of play, especially in this movie, the villain.
Speaker: I think there's certainly something operating there where Luke Skywalker, the most famous hero of all time, plays the villain.
Speaker: So interesting that he's involved.
Speaker: Huge change from the ending.
Speaker: I'm trying to figure out how to do this without spoilers, but I don't think that we can have a proper conversation about this book without talking about its ending.
Speaker: So bear with me while I stumble through this explanation here.
Speaker: The ultimate winner of the long walk is changed from the book and what he does afterwards is changed.
Speaker: That's a massive change.
Speaker: One of the major conversations that happens throughout this book is about political violence.
Speaker: And is that an effective way to affect change, to make change happen?
Speaker: The main character of the movie wants to commit an act of political violence.
Speaker: And then there's this sort of
Speaker: secondary character, second lead that basically talks him out of it.
Speaker: He wants to assassinate the general, Mark Hamill's character at the end.
Speaker: His one wish is going to be this movie was released two days after Charlie Kirk was shot and killed.
Speaker: Crazy.
Speaker: And every person in the nation was having conversations about political violence and whether it's
Speaker: effective or appropriate or how that intersects with where we are in terms of language and and all of that.
Speaker: A developed and literate society more broadly.
Speaker: right yeah exactly yeah obviously that was not they didn't know that was going to happen and two days is not enough time to like delay the release of a movie or or anything like that but um i did it was a really bizarre theater going experience it was a fairly full theater people were really interested in this movie and um it's just silent afterwards and i knew that every other person in that theater was like
Speaker: Whoops.
Speaker: Like what weird timing for us to digest this story.
Speaker: And I'm curious how much it affects not just mine, but other people's read on it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just because that was such a huge event culturally.
Speaker: whether you were a fan or not of Charlie Kirk, that's one of the defining moments of 2025.
Speaker: So I just think it's really interesting to consider in the context of the story and how it was digested by audiences.
Speaker: Which is to say, strong box office performance.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Strong reviews, particularly for its performances.
Speaker: Detractors criticize the lack of exposition.
Speaker: You're kind of just dropped into this world.
Speaker: We don't really know why it's post-apocalyptic, why the military's in charge.
Speaker: I don't know if any of that's like super important, but it does make for a weird story.
Speaker: The plot's fairly thin.
Speaker: There's not a ton that happens.
Speaker: They kind of just talk while they're walking and people drop dead around them for a couple hours.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then that ending, some people felt it was very implausible.
Speaker: Specifically, the character sort of changing his opinion in the moment is it is a little striking.
Speaker: I don't know that I totally buy it.
Speaker: But again, I just can't know if that's how I would feel if I watch this movie at a different time of year.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You can never take that context back again.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: And then I wanted to tack on Stephen King's
Speaker: reaction.
Speaker: He seemed to really be happy with this movie and compared the script to that of Shawshank Redemption, which is arguably his opus.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So seems pretty happy with it.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I'm sorry for spoiling that one, but I just felt like it would not be responsible to have a conversation about that movie and not mention the context in which it came into the world.
Speaker: And it's kind of a cool opportunity for us to talk about how
Speaker: that influences the way we consume these texts.
Speaker: Absolutely, it does.
Speaker: That's nearly, I think that's as close to this nerve as we've gotten just in conversation.
Speaker: Yeah, I just couldn't believe it.
Speaker: Well, why this was a cool idea besides that you and I were just having these discussions anyway about the books and movies we were reading and seeing was this idea that's always haunted me of can only do this activity that we're doing in one order.
Speaker: Yeah, right.
Speaker: Each individual can read the story and then see, presuming you consume both or you can see the movie and read the book.
Speaker: I can never take that back again.
Speaker: No matter how much of Minority Report I forget, whenever I go to read the book, I will have Tom Cruise in my head, right?
Speaker: I'm trying to read Wicked, but I still have... Cynthia Erivo.
Speaker: Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.
Speaker: Grande.
Speaker: In my head, right?
Speaker: As I'm trying to read these characters with crazy names and I'm frustrated to no ends.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that's kind of the genesis of this idea.
Speaker: And so you've had the exact same experience just with this cultural touch point instead of the book itself.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's no less valid.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It'll just be interesting.
Speaker: I don't know, maybe like rewatching it in several years will be interesting to see.
Speaker: Although I don't think this problem is going anywhere.
Speaker: So anyway, let's, should we take another quick break before we dive into the last bit of our discussion here?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Great idea.
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Speaker: Welcome back to Adaptation, the Book to Movie podcast.
Speaker: We are diving into our discussion questions, even further discussion questions, about Stephen King's titles that have been adapted in the year 2025.
Speaker: Chris, what do you have?
Speaker: Yeah, so I was thinking about just how long it would take me to get through any reasonable quantity of his work.
Speaker: But because there are so many adaptations, I assume you've consumed much more Stephen King than I have.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Probably, yeah.
Speaker: This is posed for the good of the audience and myself.
Speaker: I'm not a big horror guy.
Speaker: Knowing what you do about his adaptations, is there Stephen King content you would recommend that's not a clown stabbing people and that sort of stuff?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, yeah.
Speaker: I'm going to...
Speaker: pull up letterbox here so that I can kind of give you a proper look at everything that I've seen of his.
Speaker: Shawshank Redemption and the Green Mile are two stories that he wrote under his pen name, which I'm blanking on, but they're both really, really strong stories.
Speaker: Misery is sort of like horror adjacent.
Speaker: It's more of a thriller.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It sounds like you are familiar with that one.
Speaker: You mentioned it.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Let's see what else.
Speaker: Christine, I think Christine is really fun.
Speaker: It's again, it's sort of horror adjacent because it's about a living car, but it's one that again, it's so silly and stupid that I just had so much fun watching it.
Speaker: I'm really missing the logic there.
Speaker: It's horror adjacent because it's about a living car.
Speaker: So was Herbie.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: That's a true sentence.
Speaker: I mean, it's, it's horror adjacent in that, like, it's so far out there that you don't take it seriously as horror content.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You know, I'm not, I didn't like leave my house scared that the neighbor's car was going to pin me against a wall.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: The way that like you watch it and you like avoid storm drains for the rest of your life, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Is there a different label I would slap on it besides horror?
Speaker: I guess not.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Maybe science, science fiction.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: But, uh,
Speaker: not so much in a way, not horror in the way, like the kind of thing that you tend to avoid.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Those are, those are my big shout outs though.
Speaker: The not the sort of non horror shout outs.
Speaker: And those, I mean, those two that you mentioned green mile and Shawshank redemption, those are like universally beloved if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and there's movies of them and I assume that we'll get to one, if not both.
Speaker: I don't know how you can have it.
Speaker: podcast about adaptations.
Speaker: Yeah, I'll talk about Shawshank.
Speaker: I mean, some of these we're trying to set it up by year, you know, some some novel approach to cover more of his material.
Speaker: But some of these titles, realistically are going to be their own episodes.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: Totally.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I wanted to ask, what are your general feelings on Stephen King?
Speaker: Do you like him as an author?
Speaker: Why or why not?
Speaker: Yeah, you know, it's odd.
Speaker: Like I was talking about a couple of these, I had very, very similar reactions to.
Speaker: I think I told you off mic, The Shining.
Speaker: I had a show in Madison, Wisconsin.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like 2017, I think.
Speaker: So I get in the car, I turn on the audio book of the shining and listen to it cover to cover while I drive alone from Minneapolis to Madison.
Speaker: That's crazy.
Speaker: And I got to Madison, Wisconsin, and I was on well, I could not go to the theater to go load in, go get my base and my amp out of the car.
Speaker: I went and found just the first place where there was parking and an open door.
Speaker: and went and sat down in some, I don't know if it was a bar or a coffee shop, but I just stared at the wall and was like, truly, truly separated from society as a corporeal being.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think that's maybe why his quote about the power of Lord of the Flies, the hands that reach out and grab you resonated with me.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: None of his writing, you know what?
Speaker: The Dark Tower was probably my favorite book of his that I enjoyed.
Speaker: It's just more in my wheelhouse.
Speaker: I would not say I ever finish a piece of Stephen King's writing and think that was terribly enjoyable.
Speaker: But I also don't think that's what he wants.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: As a horror writer.
Speaker: Yeah, there's a power to that that I think...
Speaker: is just so necessary to access.
Speaker: And this sounds kind of crazy, but almost put yourself through.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: I think it gives me sort of ballast and context for other things that I'm reading.
Speaker: And it truly is for the sheer quantity that he's written and continues to write
Speaker: I think there's every threat that it would fall into the Agatha Christie.
Speaker: You know, this is a bee tree mold and his doesn't.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's similar dark claustrophobic feelings, certainly.
Speaker: And I've no doubt he has some stories.
Speaker: So he's just written too many.
Speaker: He must have some that I would absolutely dislike and not finish.
Speaker: But you ask a fascinating question because he will never be my favorite author.
Speaker: I have no desire to even try to read all of his writing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But I will, for some reason or another, undoubtedly read something he wrote at least every other year for the rest of my life.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: He's just, he's important for a reason.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker: Okay, this actually ties in quite well.
Speaker: A massive strength of his writing for which King is lauded is his tremendous attention to detail, this accuracy of his, even if they're fictional worlds, and the vibrance of these worlds that he builds.
Speaker: How on earth do you bring that out on the screen?
Speaker: You know, is there a consistent, considerable difference from other films that you watch?
Speaker: But maybe as far as would you see a film based on a Stephen King novel and know that that was the writer?
Speaker: Or maybe is some of this just only possible in writing and you lose it as it's turned into a movie?
Speaker: That's sort of my knee-jerk reaction to your question, is that some of it gets sort of lost.
Speaker: I see a lot of his stuff as more character-driven.
Speaker: You know, I think about movies like Carrie or Christine, which of course are named after characters.
Speaker: Misery, those are ones that are very much driven by characters and what happens to them more so than the world that they exist in.
Speaker: Uh-huh.
Speaker: Life of Chuck, you could make the same.
Speaker: Of course, of course.
Speaker: Some of the ones that we mentioned today don't really fit into that description that well.
Speaker: The Running Man is about the world.
Speaker: The Long Walk is about the world that the characters are in.
Speaker: So I don't know that I necessarily feel that there is a sort of immediately recognizable stamp of Stephen King's either, at least once it's translated to film.
Speaker: Uh-huh.
Speaker: I will say I'm not a huge fan of Stephen King stuff.
Speaker: I'm certainly able to appreciate a lot of it.
Speaker: You'll see that reflected in my
Speaker: ratings later too.
Speaker: But I would say that maybe that's one of the reasons that he's so iconic is that he is a good author.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And that he creates these digestible stories that appeal to the masses, but sort of goes a step beyond and is a good author rather than a film director or something like that.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: why do you think he's so appealing to so many people and for so freaking long huh yeah um i do absolutely think the meticulous detailed accuracy of some is going to be a draw um i also think i believe shawshank redemption was one of the examples
Speaker: The Shining was like this.
Speaker: He has this grasp on magical realism.
Speaker: Oh, we just talked about this.
Speaker: Gabriel Marquez Garcia was famous for this.
Speaker: And I guess I would kind of say Stephen King is like the American lit version.
Speaker: It's so subtle.
Speaker: It is by no means the entire book.
Speaker: No one that I have read or...
Speaker: heard has ever accused him of being, you know, a sci-fi or fantasy novelist.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's just enough that I think it touches on those daydreams and those ideas that we all have.
Speaker: And we kind of let them drift off into the atmosphere when we get off our bus for our commute and walk into work and move on with our day.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Where he captures them, goes home, spends two months making a full story out of them,
Speaker: And we can all, we can identify with, that was a simple idea.
Speaker: It wasn't this grandiose world building.
Speaker: I don't, yeah, it, it kind of, it, it's so fascinating because it's not a question that I had wondered what, what keeps me coming back to them is it's, it's a simplicity that is unattainable for most authors.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: At no point in a Stephen King novel are you like, this is too ridiculous, and you throw the book on the floor, right?
Speaker: Okay, sure.
Speaker: But it is.
Speaker: Obviously, all of them are, for the most part, for some reason throughout the book, absolutely ridiculous, literally impossible.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: No, there is not a clapping monkey toy somewhere in the world right now that every time it decides to fire up, someone falls through the ice in a lake and dies.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Every other part of the book was so precise, so accurate, so vividly described that for that moment, he epitomizes suspension of disbelief.
Speaker: You don't stop and wonder, is this possible?
Speaker: You go, is this?
Speaker: Is this?
Speaker: Is this real?
Speaker: It's fascinating.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Yeah, I would say kind of along the same lines.
Speaker: I think these are super accessible and digestible stories that are often rooted in experiences that everybody has.
Speaker: Christine and Carrie are both about kids that were bullied in high school.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: The monkey is about a couple orphans, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Most of the parents.
Speaker: Haunted hotel, supernatural encounters, even that kind of stuff is very...
Speaker: It's just accessible.
Speaker: It's not, it's not about, like you said, it's not about trolls and hobbits and whatever dragons or whatever is in those movies.
Speaker: No, it's just close enough.
Speaker: And to the same degree, it's just, it's almost so regular.
Speaker: That's why I've, I've never finished a book by Stephen King and thought, I can't wait to start another one.
Speaker: I mean, the shining was tremendous writing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: 11-22-63 Spectacular
Speaker: I did not finish either of those books and think, man, what Stephen King am I going to read next?
Speaker: I thought, I'm not going to read anything by this guy for 18 months at minimum.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: You did text me and say, the long walk came into my Libby.
Speaker: Should I read it before we record?
Speaker: And I was like, that's up to you.
Speaker: Do you want to read a fourth Stephen King book?
Speaker: I would have been hitting my head against the wall.
Speaker: I looked at it.
Speaker: I went to download from Libby and I thought, I'm just...
Speaker: It would have really depressed you too.
Speaker: That one's not.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: I don't necessarily think of you when I think of the long walk.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: We've got a lot of things to rate.
Speaker: Let's, let's dive in here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Kick us off the monkey.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: The monkey first up, I give this a three, three out of five.
Speaker: It was solid.
Speaker: Reminds me of those short ghost stories that you would read in class the week before Halloween.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Except a lot darker.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: would not recommend anyone seek this individually necessarily.
Speaker: It's just kind of a bear to get a hold of.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But if this is the sort of genre that you're into, you like his other writing, get one of these giant compendiums, have Skeleton Crew on your shelf, and once a month pull it down and read one of them.
Speaker: Yeah, that's fun.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: I'm in a fairly similar boat.
Speaker: I gave it 2 and 1 half stars.
Speaker: Like I said, qualifier for all these.
Speaker: I'm not the biggest Stephen King fan in the world, so these are maybe lower than other cinephiles would rate them.
Speaker: I felt like the themes in The Monkey weren't explored deeply enough because they spent so much time on that sort of humor and borderline excessive violence that could come from this being based on a short story rather than a full novel.
Speaker: But if you can't flesh out the ideas well enough, don't make a full length movie.
Speaker: It's sort of a theme that I return to often.
Speaker: I think it would have made a more effective short film, which of course means that fewer people would have seen it and it wouldn't have made any money or anything.
Speaker: It would have been more of a risk.
Speaker: But I don't know.
Speaker: For the sake of art, you know, it's not a bad path.
Speaker: No, I can see that entirely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Running Man.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: I said three, but.
Speaker: I'd be hard pressed to say who I would recommend it to.
Speaker: Not in the sense that it's a bad book in and of itself, but when people ask me for book recommendations, because I have lots of friends that are in book clubs, that we swap books, everything, I think about what genre do they enjoy.
Speaker: And I really had a, I have a tough time saying what genre I think this book is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I can see that.
Speaker: There are more to the point, it's not bad, but there are other, other
Speaker: books that I would recommend over it.
Speaker: I think if you are into the cynical, kind of glass half empty view of modernity, if you thought 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 were the best books ever, it's certainly an exciting version of that realm.
Speaker: I just personally don't know a lot of people that are sitting around reading those for fun.
Speaker: Again, maybe once a year you want that reality check and this would be a good option.
Speaker: Solid three did not in any way consider higher.
Speaker: Didn't really consider lower.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I gave it three stars as well.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's definitely fun, but like I said, there's just a lot of self-confliction in this movie.
Speaker: I think it is trying really hard to be a modern blockbuster, which means it wants to appeal to men and women and liberals and conservatives and wealthy people and poor people.
Speaker: And you kind of can't say anything, especially in a story that is so politically charged as this one.
Speaker: You can't say anything if you're trying to please everybody.
Speaker: So this movie...
Speaker: I thought just was pretty flat and shouldn't have been.
Speaker: And there's a lot of, it's still kind of fun, but I don't know, really devoid of what could have made it special.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's too bad.
Speaker: I fully anticipated of the three that we both consumed this to be the best movie for sure.
Speaker: I was looking forward to it all year, too.
Speaker: So the disappointment factor really weighs on this one.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: That's too bad.
Speaker: Last one.
Speaker: Life of Chuck.
Speaker: I gave this a four out of five.
Speaker: That may not even be correct.
Speaker: I may return and reread this.
Speaker: It could even be higher.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Really like it.
Speaker: Loved the fresh, modern feeling.
Speaker: I think that's another thing that he has pulled off spectacularly.
Speaker: I was going to say good at.
Speaker: I couldn't name another example.
Speaker: So one, oh, a sample size of one is not enough to say that's a consistent trait of his.
Speaker: But it was just refreshing and surprising.
Speaker: There was such a wide open avenue where this could immediately have become corny or...
Speaker: you know, so unrealistic.
Speaker: It's, it's just frivolous.
Speaker: And he pulled it off.
Speaker: You feel good when you finish reading it, but not just a candy feel good beach read because it isn't, um, cause you don't question anything.
Speaker: You feel good while still committing some useful and appropriate reflection.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Interesting to hear you say all of that because I have basically the inverse review of the movie.
Speaker: Right now I have it at two stars, could go down.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: I think it is sickly sweet.
Speaker: This movie is like too much for me.
Speaker: I think its themes are poorly executed.
Speaker: And I think it's only a feel-good story and a life-affirming story because the beginning makes you feel like such absolute dog shit.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And I'm not going to spoil that because if it's effective for some people, then great.
Speaker: And I'm jealous of you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I felt so miserable watching the beginning of the movie.
Speaker: And then also, I thought it was just like a poorly made movie.
Speaker: It looks like a streaming movie or a TV movie.
Speaker: And Mark Hamill cannot act.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: He's a pretty pivotal character.
Speaker: So I really, really hated this movie.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: No, that's good to know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then lastly, I gave a rating to The Long Walk.
Speaker: I gave it three and a half stars.
Speaker: So the highest of the four here.
Speaker: Pretty harrowing story, but very much in the vein of things we've seen.
Speaker: Hunger Games, Squid Game, Maze Runner.
Speaker: And changing the ending doesn't sit well with me.
Speaker: And again, I just don't know.
Speaker: I can't know if that's because of what happened when the movie came out or what.
Speaker: And that's not to say, I don't mean for any of that to indicate how I feel about what happened either, but you just can't
Speaker: read this text without that umbrella hanging over.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Do you have any recommendations?
Speaker: Uh, yes.
Speaker: I didn't write it down because I was hoping some more eloquent and miraculous recommendation would pop into my head.
Speaker: These are just so wildly different.
Speaker: Even amongst the rest of his catalog.
Speaker: Yeah, I really
Speaker: Both short stories, if you enjoy that form.
Speaker: And honestly, based on his preface, I think I personally need to lean into seeking those more than just your standard novels.
Speaker: If you like a, again, I don't know what I'd call it, horror, suspense, dystopian novel, I don't know that Running Man is the one I would point you to.
Speaker: So it's a strange situation, but if I were discussing this with anyone and recommendations were to come up,
Speaker: I don't think any of these would be the first author or book I would point at, which is so confusing because I did enjoy reading all three.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Tough spot.
Speaker: What are your thoughts on the film side?
Speaker: This is too strange a crop of stories to put any one blanket recommendation over, partly because not only are they all different stories, but each story has its own diversion from traditional Stephen King.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: too.
Speaker: So I basically just said, if you like horror, watch The Monkey or try The Monkey.
Speaker: If you like feel good stuff, give Life of Chuck a try.
Speaker: If you like the dystopian thrillers, give The Long Walk and Running Man a try.
Speaker: But the most important thing here, I think, is the Stephen King of it all.
Speaker: He's such a big figure in pop culture that I think
Speaker: you probably know whether you like Stephen King stuff or not.
Speaker: And that's the most important piece when you're trying to decide whether or not to consume these stories.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: What is your relationship with Stephen King stuff?
Speaker: So if you like him, then read this stuff.
