I like The Running Man. The reality TV stuff is great and was written well before the advent of real reality TV. I wish someone would remake it as a movie. The Ah-nold version is one of the worst examples of what Hollywood can do to good books (although I liked the casting of Richard Dawson). If it was remade today the satirical potential is endless.
Second chice: The Long Walk. Extremely original concept, good characters, lots of tension, lots of pathos (especially the way that friendships are forged with the knowledge that almost all of them will die). I’m not sure how cinematic it would be, though. It would have to be just a lot of shots of walking and talking. I also wouldn’t trust Hollywood not to try to graft a happy ending onto it or defang the concept somehow.
My wife and I saw the same thing, when we saw the trailer in front of Big Fish last Friday. There’s some King stories (mostly “straight” stories, rather than horror-themed ones) that they actually downplay his role in… Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption were, as I recall, marketed without King’s name featured at all.
Not sure why this one would also be marketed without King’s name, though, since it has more of a scary story angle. Maybe they’re worried about a repeat of the outright stinker-dom of Dreamcatcher?
Am I correct that Dolan’s Cadillac (packaged in Nightmares and Dreamscapes) was originally penned by Bachman? If so, it’s right up there behind The Long Walk and Rage. The other two didn’t grab me nearly as much.
Actually, IIRC, Dolan’s Cadillac was originally published in serial form in the Stephen King Newsletter. I could be wrong there, but if this is the case, it’d be at least a little difficult to pass it off as a Bachman story.
