Hey, do you remember Stand By Me?

Hello and welcome Hey, do you remember Hey Do You Remember, a show where we reminisce about a movie or TV series we grew up with, then take off the rose-tinted glasses to see how it holds up.

I'm Chris.

I'm Donna.

And I'm Carlos.

And today we're revisiting Stand By Me.

Thank you. And I'm Carlos. And today we're revisiting Stand By Me. For a long time, Stand By Me was Stephen King's favorite adaptation of one of his stories.

It also set the stage for the next phase of director Rob Reiner's career and turned its four young leads into movie stars.

It also, very nearly, didn't happen.

Days before filming was scheduled to begin, Embassy, the production company

Bankrolling the movie, was bought out by Columbia Pictures, and they decided they weren't interested

in the project and shut the whole thing down. But one of Embassy's co-owners was Norman Lear,

the legendary television writer and producer who had worked with Reiner on All in the Family.

And he had such faith in the film and

in Reiner in his cast that he paid for everything out of his own pocket. That still left them

without a distributor, though. So even when Stand By Me was completed, they had no way of releasing it.

And no studio wanted to touch it. The period setting, the lack of a love interest, or women in general,

they just didn't really understand who this was for or how to sell it. Fortunately, one studio

had screened the film with his daughters, and their reaction to it, and specifically to River

Phoenix, convinced him to buy it. That studio? Columbia Pictures. Stand by Me did not have a gigantic opening.

It also didn't have the widespread critical acclaim it does now, but it did perform steadily

week after week after week. Its reputation and its audience continued to grow not only during

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