The Kingcast

The Dead Zone is an early and much-loved King book about a school teacher who awakens from a coma and discovers he has the ability to see the past and future of people he meets via simple touch. David Cronenberg's film is methodic and tragic with one hell of a cast, from Christopher Walken to Martin Sheen.

William Sadler has been in some of the best Stephen King adaptations, including the Frank Darabont Trifecta of The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist and now he's on The Kingcast to discuss all that plus detours to his starring role in Tales From The Crypt: Demon Knight, his oddly nude bad guy in Die Hard 2, Death in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, and his latest film, a tongue-in-cheek genre flick called The Yeti, which is out on digital April 10th.Sadler is one of our best character actors and has some great stories to tell about his time working in the business. Plus we find out he has a secret Stephen King performance that we never knew about!

I hope you brought your sad tissues with you today because this episode gets emotional real dang quickly. Our guest is Wil Wheaton who is returning to The Kingcast to talk about all things Stand By Me and The Body as Rob Reiner's film celebrates its 40th anniversary and Wil steps behind the mic and into adult Gordy LaChance's shoes as he narrates a new audiobook of Stephen King's novella, The Body.We recorded this just two days after Wheaton appeared on stage at the Oscars for Rob Reiner's memorial and let's just say the emotions are still running strongly, but luckily for us Wil is very open about what he's feeling and what Rob meant to him as an artist and a father figure, the man who Wil believes was the first person to actually show him unconditional love and support as a young man.So jump in as Wil recounts some stories from the making of the iconic movie and gives us insight into the process of revisiting this classic 40 years later where he, not Richard Dreyfuss, gets to lead us through it.As a special bonus, Simon & Schuster have given us a preview of Wil Wheaton's reading of The Body, which is available for purchase now wherever you get your audiobooks. Make sure to stay to the end of the interview to hear a piece of Wheaton's narration.Copyright © 1982 by Stephen King. Audio excerpt courtesy of Simon & Schuster Audio from the audiobook The Body, read by Wil Wheaton, published by Simon & Schuster Audio, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Used with permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Nightmares and Dreamscapes contains a whopping 24 short stories that range from melancholy observations of the fleeting nature of time to a secret society of bat people that rule all the world's governments. King dips his toes into Romero Zombie territory in this book, hardboiled crime fiction, a Sherlock Holmes tale, and one of his best: a loving homage to HP Lovecraft.

The Dark Half is a story about an author battling his pseudonym (literally) and the behind the scenes of King's process while writing this story reveals that perhaps the author wasn't fully finished with his own alter ego, Richard Bachman, either.

Throttle is Joe Hill and Stephen King's homage to Richard Matheson's Duel, but with some Sons of Anarchy and Breaking Bad thrown in for good measure. What happens when a biker gang is attacked on the open road by a killer truck driver? That's the question in front of this tale about a heavily dysfunctional father and son have to try to survive this ordeal which they may or may not have unknowingly instigated.

Originally printed in Night Shift, The Woman in the Room is an early non-horror story from King inspired by his own mother's death about a man weighing whether or not to help his dying mother end her suffering. Darabont's adaptation was the very first "Dollar Baby," King's program where he'd give limited rights to young filmmakers to adapt his short stories for the low, low price of a single dollar.

The Little Sisters of Eluria was first published in 1998 and later republished in King's short story collection Everything's Eventual. It follows Roland, the gunslinger, as he pursues the Man in Black and happens upon some kindly nun healers in a small town. Appearances can be deceiving, though, and Roland finds himself in very real danger.

Wizard and Glass is a flashback novel that begins by resolving the epic cliffhanger from The Wastelands (involving a suicidal train who likes riddles) and then dives into the traumatic past of Roland Deschain, the leader of this new band of gunslingers. It's a sweeping romance, a Shakespearean tragedy, and an action/adventure fantasy all rolled into one cohesive narrative.

Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, were tragically murdered over the weekend and the film community is still reeling. Reiner was not only a kind man, someone dedicated to protecting the rights and freedoms of everybody, and a talented filmmaker, he was one of the very few filmmakers that understood exactly how to translate Stephen King to the big screen.Author Nat Cassidy (The Wolf at the Door) and film commentator Drew McWeeny (The Hip Pocket Podcast) join Beznican and Vespe to discuss the tragic loss of Reiner and celebrate his massive contributions to the world of cinema, from his King adaptations Stand By Me, Misery, and The Shawshank Redemption (which he produced for Frank Darabont) to the genre defining classics This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, and A Few Good Men.