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.

Based on King's novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, Frank Darabont's film is already at icon status and may prove to be a generational work of cinema. It focuses on the friendship between two prison inmates and celebrates the near miraculous effects of hope in the face of despair. It's a rare Stephen King story that deals solely with real life monsters and will go down as one of the best American stories of the 20th century.

Joyland takes place in the early 1970s and follows a heartbroken high school graduate as he goes to do some summer work at a local pierside amusement park. He quickly becomes intrigued by the story of a ghostly young woman who supposedly haunts the horror ride and starts pulling at a thread that could potentially solve her murder.

It: Welcome to Derry chronicles the events of the 1962 cycle of the evil entity behind Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Tension is high, the civil rights movement is making ground and the Cold War is about to reach its zenith. All this is fertile ground for It to do its thing. It: Welcome to Derry airs on HBO Max every Sunday and the official companion podcast can be downloaded immediately after wherever you get your podcasts.

The Running Man was adapted into an '80s action star vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger, a film that is extremely entertaining and sharply satirical, but one that bears little resemblance to the King/Bachman novel it was based on. Edgar Wright and his team decided to make a film that hews closer to the source material. The Running Man hits theaters November 7th.

It: Welcome to Derry premieres October 26th on HBO and explores the events of the cycle previous to the one featured in the films, set all the way back in 1962 Derry.

This Kingcast episode was recorded in front of a live (rowdy bar) audience.

Clark Collis is known as an entertainment journalist, historian, and author and comes at this conversation with a ton of love for the horror genre and of Stephen King's work therein. He's also ready to drop a few entertaining film coverage stories with his fellow ex-pat journalist pals who just so happen to host this show.

2019's Pet Sematary is a wild swing of a remake directed by Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch that goes even darker than the original Mary Lambert adaptation. It sticks to the main beats of King's original story until it veers off in a wildly different direction, a decision that proved divisive among King constant readers, but one you have to admire over playing it safe and just doing a simple modern updating of the material.

The Long Walk follows a group of young men engaged in a deadly game where the prize is an escape from poverty, but the penalty is death and there can be only one winner. The Long Walk is currently out in theaters.

Set in an alternate world where the US run by an authoritarian regime, The Long Walk follows a group of young men who partake in a deadly endurance contest where there can be only one survivor. Despite the heavy odds and even heavier penalties for failure, friendships grow and bonds are formed as these guys support each other mile after mile.

The Lawnmower Man is a controversial King adaptation and one that King himself had to sue to get his name removed from. The movie shares virtually nothing with the original King short story outside of a spark of telekinesis and a lawnmower. Jeff Fahey stars as Jobe, a simple man who is made smarter thanks to Pierce Brosnan's mad scientist experiments and a VR headset.

The Institute brings King back into familiar territory as he focuses on a bunch of kids gifted with telekinetic powers being studied by a shady government organization. There's currently a TV adaptation airing week to week on MGM+ starring today's guest.

The Shawshank Redemption was not a success on release, but has grown into a modern day classic, one of those perfect lightning in a bottle movies. The period film is set in a corrupt prison as a wrongfully convicted inmate makes friends, enemies, and hatches a decades long escape.

Cycle of the Werewolf began life as a Bernie Wrightson calendar and King couldn't help but expand on the idea of documenting a different werewolf attack every month on the full moon into a novella length narrative following a little boy in a wheelchair facing off against a werewolf that is terrorizing his small town.

Fairy Tale is King's COVID novel. In the early days of lockdown, this is what King's imagination fed to him, an escapist story of a young man on a quest into a fantasy world that holds fortunes, danger, and the ability to save his aging dog, Radar.

The Stand is Stephen King's epic story of good versus evil set against the ruins of a plague-riddled America as the fate of all of humanity is decided by the followers of the saintly Mother Abigail and the dastardly charming devil-in-human-form Randall Flagg.

Breznican and Vespe talk with the two actors about their first impressions of the material, their conversations with writer/director Mike Flanagan, and just how impressed they both were to share the screen with both OG Kingcast hosts.