310: Talking Ray Bradbury and Stephen King with Author Sam Weller

Who better to pontificated about the similarities and differences between two of the most popular American authors of all time than Ray Bradbury's own chosen biographer and your dedicated Kingcast boys.New York Times best selling author, biographer, and journalist Sam Weller (The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury) makes his first appearance on The Kingcast to discuss his relationship with Bradbury, the interactions both he and Bradbury had with Stephen King (and Steven Spielberg for that matter), and why Bradbury never had a Frank Darabont or Rob Reiner that could truly translate his words into an all-timer film.Weller's latest book, Dark Black, and be picked up at the link below:https://hatandbeard.com/products/dark-black

One of our greatest working character actors joins up for his first appearance on The Kingcast. You know Stephen Root from just about everything, from Office Space to King of the Hill to No Country For Old Men to Man In The High Castle and the recent hit horror/comedy show Widow's Bay.Root shows up ready to rock as we look back over his career, from working with George A. Romero on Monkey Shines to the prescience of Mike Judge's Office Space and Idiocracy, and his love of Stephen King, which started with The Stand and culminated in one of his favorite works: 11/22/63. Did you also know that Root appeared in a King miniseries? We talk about all that and more in this very fun episode.Widow's Bay is can be binged on AppleTV. It rules, go watch it.

Obsession rules. It's the latest horror sensation to take over the box office and has the genre community abuzz with how good it is. So naturally we had to get two of the stars on the show to talk about their cool ass movie and their favorite Stephen King things.So, we're joined by Michael Johnston and Cooper Tomlinson and topics include their Stephen King origin stories, which King movie adaptations have influenced their work, and so much more. You will get talk about Stand By Me, The Shining, 11/22/63, Mike Flanagan, Pennywise, and even a little more Revival peer pressure from the Kingcast boys.Obsession is out now in a theater near you!

University of Maine Professor (and the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature, by the way) Caroline Bicks spent a year combing through King's original manuscripts at his own personal archive and that resulted in an essential book for King obsessives: Monsters In The Archives that gives us new insights into King's process and illuminates paths not taken on some of his most iconic stories, like The Shining, Pet Sematary, Carrie, Night Shift, and 'Salem's Lot.These bonus episodes are usually exclusive to The Kingcast Patreon, so if you want more of this make sure to sign up over at www.patreon.com/thekingcast.Also make sure to order your copy of Monsters in the Archives at your local bookstore or at www.carolinebicks.com. 

Screenwriter Jeremy Slater (Moon Knight, The Exorcist, Mortal Kombat II) returns to The Kingcast to talk about... not Stephen King. Well, not directly, anyway. The topic up for discussion is Joe Hill's 2025 epic horror tome King Sorrow which contains many familial references and those don't just include his famous father. The story centers a group of college friends who uncover the ability to summon a dark force to combat their enemies, but like most dark forces this protection comes at a price.Hill tells this story over multiple decades and litters the narrative with nods to many King titles, from The Dead Zone to The Dark Tower.We discuss the book without spoilers for the first half of the conversation and dig into some of the more spoilery stuff in the back. Don't worry, make it very clear when we're transitioning to spoiler territory.Make sure to catch Mortal Kombat II written by our guest Jeremy Slater in theaters this weekend!

The very funny Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney had never seen David Cronenberg's The Dead Zone, so naturally we had to make them watch it and report back. You know Nick & Brian collectively as BriTANiK from their sketch work at SNL, their writing on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and the two movies they have coming out this April: Pizza Movie, which they wrote and directed and is out now on Hulu, and Over Your Dead Body, hitting theaters this very weekend. So, what did they think of Cronenberg's film? Well, you'll have to listen and find out, but I will say that had just as many questions for Vespe and Breznican as the hosts had for them.

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.

Horror author Nat Cassidy (When the Wolf Comes Home) has a new book of short stories coming out called I Know A Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours so it was only natural that we brought him back on the show to talk about one of King's most beloved short story collections: Nightmares and Dreamscapes.This is one of King's doorstoppers, so me, Breznican, and Nat all pick our three favorite stories and see what overlaps and what doesn't. Come of the talk of vampire urine, stay for the insightful chatter about how authors curate the pacing of short story collections.Nat's new book, I Know A Place, is available for pre-order now and hits shelves May 5th.

We have something of an academic detour for you with this episode. Listen along as we're joined by Professor Andy Hageman (Director of the Center for Ethics and Public Engagement at Luther College) who recently got access to the exclusive Stephen King Archive where he got hands on with King's original typed manuscripts and discovered something fairly interesting about King's process, particularly when it comes to The Dark Half.The Prof tells us what it was like to get that close to literary history as well as what it's like teaching King at a college level and what he thinks future scholars will teach when it comes to Stephen King.If you like what you hear, make sure to check out Hageman's essay on this experience for the LA Review of Books here: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/stephen-king-dark-half-revisited-archives-richard-bachman/