About a year ago, my colleague Eric Vespe invited me out to lunch at a delightful little Mexican place here in Austin, TX, plied me with margaritas, and pitched me an idea: a Stephen King podcast, to be called THE KINGCAST, wherein each episode would focus on a different Stephen King short story or novel and its resulting adaptation. The catch? Each episode's special guest would get to decide which Stephen King adaptation we talked about. Obviously, I agreed to co-host this show immediately. The drinks had nothing to do with it.
The journey to bring THE KINGCAST to you, the Constant Listeners and Stephen King fanatics of the world, has been a wild one. For reasons too tedious to explain, it took months of planning, negotiating, scheduling and recording to get this bad boy off the ground, but after a great deal of hard work we are finally ready to start rolling THE KINGCAST out into the world. Lemme tell you: we are very pleased with the work that's been done thus far.
Our very first episode is now online. It covers THE RUNNING MAN, with special guest Kumail Nanjiani. If you're thinking Kumail Nanjiani is one helluva guest to kick off one's podcast with, well, that's the level of talent we will be bringing to this show. Indeed, you're gonna hear some of your favorite filmmakers, comedians, actors and personalities discussing various Stephen King properties at length ... but you're also gonna get a curveball or two along the way (hey, DARK TOWER fans - hoo, boy, do we have a surprise for you).
Each episode features a deep dive into King's text (when was it written? Where was King at in his career at that point?) and the resulting adaptation (was it good? Bad? How faithful was it, and how does it stack up against the rest of King's filmography?). Some episodes are serious. Some episodes are funny. The show is designed to be a mixed bag, but it's a love letter to the reigning Master of Horror just as much as it is to the millions of fans he has all over the world. We are so, so excited to be bringing you this show, and think it will be of major interest to the BMD readership.
Today I'm bringing you two episodes, actually: a prologue episode ("Episode Zero"), which finds Vespe and I introducing ourselves, the show's format, and our King bonafides, and well as our very first official episode.
Here's Episode Zero...
And here's Episode One...
In addition to running here on BIRTH.MOVIES.DEATH. (new episodes every Wednesday!), you'll be able to find THE KINGCAST indexed on Spotify, Audioboom, iTunes, Stitcher, Deezer, Podchaser, RadioPublic, Overcaster, something called "Listen Notes", and more. If your preferred podcast platform is not listed among these names, please consider subscribing/listening via one of the platforms we mentioned. Surely one of them will be up your alley! Oh, and one other thing: each episode of the show will end with a head's up about the title we'll be covering the following week, just in case you'd like to revisit that film/limited series beforehand. For instance, next week's episode will cover CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF and SILVER BULLET. Any guesses on the guest?
Stay tuned for more, every week, and do leave us a nice review if you enjoy what you hear!