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The Running Man Tears It Up
Truth to tell (an ‘interesting’ way to start this piece), The Running Man – as a film or book – has been pretty much dead for twenty years or so. A minor Bachman book, even when it was published back in 1983, it was (and still is) frequently confused with 1979’s The Long Walk, and regardless – like the other early Bachman books – it wasn’t “Stephen King-y” enough at the time, not long enough or filled with classic monsters or jump scares. Any potential it might have displayed was pretty efficiently quashed after Paul Michael Glazer’s noisome and loathsome 1987 film with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Richard Dawson (Hey, remember Richard Dawson? One of those cultural icons of the 80’s already lost to antiquity)p. Today, it ranks high on the list of King movies that everybody’s heard of/about, but few have actually seen (though it is still currently all over the place, like Paramount+ and Roku, as well as Amazon for a paltry $1.99).
Fast forward to the 21st century, and the truly revolutionary writer/director Edgar Wright (of Last Night in Soho, Baby Driver, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and Shaun of the Dead, plus the other Cornetto movies) somehow convinced Paramount to let him remake The Running Man as an entirely different film…
A whole lot of shakin’ going on: King adaptations are all over the streamers this January
We usually see a little bit of shifting around, from Netflix to Peacock to who knows where, in any given month, but the Dance of the Channels are hitting new heights in January ‘26.
It’s not enough that Life of Chuck has finally escaped the twenty-dollar prison of VOD back on December 26. That was just the beginning. Beginning on New Year’s Day and continuing at least through the middle of the month, there’s a ton going on, including the re-emergence of some missing must-watches:
On Thursday, January 1:
- Doctor Sleep left Netflix. Now it’s available only on Amazon Prime to rent or buy (thankfully at a not-so-awful price).
- The Green Mile came to Peacock. Frank Darabont’s 1999 adaptation of King’s 1996 ‘serial novel’ has some serious issues with stereotypes, but it’s also filled with unforgettable scenes and performances, including work by Tom Hanks, the late Michael Jeter and the much-missed Michael Clark Duncan. Nice to have it back.
- Misery came to Peacock. Rob Reiner’s and William Goldman’s damn near perfect adaptation includes the best work James Caan ever did, bar none, and reminds us of the beginning of Kathy Bates’ amazing career (for most of us). If we can put the insane tragedy of Reiner’s death aside, if only for a moment, it’s possible and maybe necessary to appreciate this piece of art again, fully 35 years after it was made.
- Kubrick’s The Shining arrived on Peacock. My sometimes partner-in-crime Cat Bentley and I totally disagree on this much-loved, much-hated classic (and part of the bitter argument we have on our podcast will be part of the first paid content in a week or three), but regardless: watch it if you want/must. It’s back.
And still to come:
Is Joe Hill’s King Sorrow part of the Dark Multiverse? Hell, yes.
The first, best clue is the extended discussion of The Dead Zone’s John Smith, and Mr. Hill himself admits to other references in a cool interview he did recently for CBC Arts. ” There’s some other places where I’ve echoed the language in some of dad’s books because I thought it was fun.”
And that’s just the beginning. Outside the Tower — in a way, if you insist that our world isn’t in there/on there somewhere — there are some other clever little bits. From that selfsame interview:
“Each part of the book is named after a work by someone in my family,” he explains. “The first part, The Briars, is the last book that I wrote that I couldn’t sell. Part two is called Flight or Fright, and that is the title of an anthology my dad did with Bev Vincent. Part three is called Double Feature, which is the title of my brother’s first novel. Part four is called The Trap, which is the title of my mother’s second novel. And the final part of the book is called Save Yourself — my brother married the wonderful writer Kelly Braffet, and I think that’s the title of her third novel.”
You can enjoy the full piece here, and fear not: it may be the first full-length novel from Hill in a decade, but it’s pretty damn solid. And, of course, it serves the Beam.
The Life of Chuck dances into Hulu on December 26
The Life of Chuck didn’t do tremendously well at the box office. It was probably destined to do poorly. Hopefully, it will find the audience it deserves when it is set free from its twenty-dollar hell on Amazon Prime and shuffle-ball-changes over to Hulu/Disney+ the day after Christmas
The main reason given is that rather hoary old cliche, “It’s not like other Stephen King stories,” and though it’s true, it’s also nonsense. read more…
Here We Go Again
I like this logo. We built it years ago, pre-pandemic, when we were happily noodling around with a podcast of the same name. But time passes, diseases devastate the planet (sound familiar?) and now, finally, we’re back with The Newest Thing: a Substack newsletter, every other week, on exactly the same topic, but more so.
You’d think after doing these newsletter thingies for thirty years or so, it would get easier. In fact, it’s rather like raising children. You may know a little bit more wth each new arrival, but every one of them is different — born different, really — and every one is a challenge.
You can click on the boxes above and below and get the bi-weekly free of charge, at least at the moment. And please, hit the “Drop Us A Note” button just above or below, and absorb a couple of issues. Who knows, you might even like it.