News, Clues, and Connections

What’s the buzz in the Dark Multiverse?

It’s been a busy season for Stephen King & Family. Let’s cast the net back only a couple of months, and look forward to the rest of the year….

Friday, September 12: The Long Walk premieres. And it’s already streaming.

It’s only taken, what, 46 years or so, but finally: the film based on the 1979 Richard Bachman novel hits theaters, and it’s already available on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Good Play, Fandango, and YouTube. There’s even Oscar mumble for both Cooper Hoffman and Jonsson. (Surprising factoid on Cooper: the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s son. Surprising factoid on Honsson: British) Still, at $19.95 … hell, I saw it on the big screen for half that, and you know the price will come down.

Friday, October 17: Black Phone 2 premieres, and it too is streaming.

Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill’s sequel to 2021’s adaptation of Joe Hill’s eponymous short story from Twentieth Century Ghosts still stars Ethan Hawke, and here again — $20 a pop. On the brighter side, last year’s Black Phone is available for a far more reasonable price: less than $4.00 on Amazon Prime.

Tuesday, October 21: Joe Hill’s new novel, King Sorrow, premieres.

It’s Joe’s first novel in almost ten years, though Lord knows he’s been keeping busy all that time. Critical and fan reception (is there a difference any more?) has been good for this hefty book, clocking in at my than 900 pages in hardcover. And though I’m no fan of Kirkus Reviews, this quote is especially nice: “At turns spooky and funny, with bits of inside baseball and a swimming pool’s worth of blood.”

Saturdays, October 26 through December 14: IT: Welcome to Derry premieres on HBO/Max.

The Muschiettis aren’t quite done with that cursed little village; they’re back for more with a prequel/expansion of It, cram full of references from all up and down the Tower. Nine episodes on HBO/Max only, so at least one good reason to keep that subscription for a couple more months. But Max, we’re watching.

Friday, November 14: The Running Man premieres in theaters.

The last King theatrical release in a very busy year – an apparently (mostly) faithful adaptation of King/Bachman’s bleak 1982 novel. And no worries: I bears no resemblance at all to the gaudy, bizarre 1987 “adaptation” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and directed by Paul Michael Glazer (remind me: was he Hutch or Starsky?). Even King likes that one (and notice his long-held-private opinion of the Glazer Cut in In His Own Words below.

Tuesday, November 19: The End Times, a monthly series written by Ben Percy and King, premieres.

There’s not a heck of a lot known about The End Times, other than it’s kind of an epistolary serial story set in the post-Vegas world of The Stand, that (apparently? Maybe?) features the resurrection of King’s alter ego Richard Bachman. Here is a nice little interview with Percy that will give you a few clues, and you can subscribe to a paper or e-version here.

The first, failed adaptation of The Dark Tower is leaving Netflix December 1.

Idris Elba as Roland was given a raw deal, stuck in a murky and unsatisfying version of All The Dark Tower Books In One. And now that Mike Flanagan is prepping a new multi-part, probably multi-year version of the Saga for Amazon Prime, that failed first attempt is quietly fading away. So if you want to see Matthew McConaughey as The Man in Black one last time, better do it soon (meanwhile, there are scant details and no ETA on the Flanagan version, but stay tuned).

Are you Talking Scared?

There are a lot – a lot – of horror podcasts in general and King podcasts in particular, and though I have a few favorites, like The Horror Virgin and Random Number Generator Horror Podcast No. 9, the one with the most meat on its bones, by far, is Neil McRobert’s interview show, Talking Scared. McRoberts is a guy who not only loves horror lit, he understands it, deeply, and just about every damn horror author working today has been on this show and listeners are the better for it. Even better, there’s an ongoing podcast-within-a-a-podcast that a book-by-book deep discussion of the Dark Tower books, starting with The Gunslinger, and featuring damn-near-brilliant horror author Nat Cassidy, an expert on King and the Tower, and Chris Pannetier, who’s reading the series for the first time (And they’re sneaking in multi-episode explorations of other King classics like Salem’s Lot, too). If you want to enjoy an ongoing (and fascinating) discussion of the Dark Tower as it unfolds one book at a time, listen no further.

The End of the World As We Know It, live and direct from the world(s) of The Stand, is kicking ass sales-wise, and Alma Katsu has noticed.

This from her own excellent Substack, Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde:

I’m thrilled to announce that The End of the World As We Know It, the anthology based on the world of Stephen King’s The Stand that I’ve been banging on about recently (as the Brits would say) debuted on the NYT bestseller list at #3, pretty remarkable for an anthology. It also made the Washington Post list (#5), the LA Times list (#9) and the USA Today list (#16). I’m vain enough to think it’s because the stories in it are really, uniformly, good. That’s what reviews have said, but I hope you’ll judge for yourselves. Congratulations to editors Christopher Golden, Brian Keene, and Ed Schlesinger (Gallery), who helmed this collection, from conception to promotion, so masterfully. (Lest you think it a bit presumptuous to use the “NYT bestselling” appellation, rest assured that it’s been blessed by both my literary agent and the publisher of the anthology.)

Forbes (Forbes??) has an article on the King Multiversal Easter eggs in Edgar Wright’s new adaptation of The Running Man.

It includes a few I noticed right away and one great one – tied to the Asian restaurant that’s a key location in IT – that I missed completely. The quotes from Edgar Wright, who’s already in the Hall of Fame for directing Shawn of the Dead, sound just like you’d expect Edgar Wright to sound. Check it out here.

There have been far too many half-assed sequels to Stephen King movies…but no more.

Early in his career, when King sold the movie rights to his books and stories, he also signed away the rights to sequels with very few safeguards for approval. Well, those days are over. All those old agreements have timed out; the last to go is Children of the Corn, and its last sequel, Children of the Corn: Runaway, is the last gasp.

Fangoria recently published an interview with King that touched on the tragic history of bad sequels, and Screenrant.com did a nice summary of it here. To summarize the summary in a single quote from King:

I read the script – or as much of it as I could stand – and I read enough to realize that it was exactly like the first Pet Sematary with different characters. I don’t approve of [Pet Sematary 2] and I didn’t want it made. I hope the people who read FANGORIA, the people who read my books and anyone who likes my stuff will stay away from this picture. And this is one that I will not see myself.

Ahhh, the man can still pack all the Down Easterner charm and venom in equal parts into a single casual chat.

Carrie is getting yet another remake, this time a multi-part mini-series on Amazon Prime, adapted and (mostly) directed by the incomparable Mike Flanagan.

Carrie has already been through a handful of adaptations beyond the first, still classic 1976 version from 1976 (Jesus, fifty years old next year!) – and it’s still worth a look. For my money, as awesome as Cissy Spacetk was, the real star of that version is Piper Laurie, as Carrie’s mother, who never gets enough credit.

Meanwhile…Mike Flanagan. Yow. (And if you haven’t seen Life of Chuck yet, what the hell is wrong with you?). He’s the writer, executive producer, and show runner, and will direct some of the episodes. As usual, Flanagan is moving fast and very quietly; all we know for sure is that the eight-episode project features Summer H. Howell as Carrie and Siena Agudong as Sue Snell. Carrie’s mother is being played by Samantha Sloyan, one of Flanagan’s ensemble (you’ll recognize her immediately from The Haunting of Hill House, Hush, Midnight Mass, Midnight Club, and most recently Life of Chuck and The Pitt – and no, that last one isn’t Flanagan. She’s done a ton of other stuff.) And if you want a glimpse of Howell in a similar role, she’s The First Girl (as opposed to the Final Girl) in this year’s so-so slasher sleeper, Night of the Reaper, available on AMC+ or Amazon Prime right now. Agudong has been around a bit as well. If you didn’t see her in the really awful sitcom No Good Nick, we forgive you. You might remember her instead from the very disappointing eight-episode Resident Evil series from 2022 that everyone’s already forgotten. It’s on Netflix. Proceed at your own risk.

No premiere date for the series yet, but we’ll let you know. Sometime in 2026 for sure.