Percolated Media

In 1987, Arnold Schwarzenegger was well on his way to becoming the biggest action star in the world. Later on in the year, he would be in Predator. But first, he’d star in the Stephen King adaptation The Running Man. Or is it a Richard Bachman adaptation? What’s the difference, and why would the rights to this book be $100,000, surprising the hell out of producer George Linder? We get into all of...

As we already established on our The Dead Zone podcast, 1983 was the Year of the King. That year, Stephen King fans were treated to not one, not two, but THREE adaptations of the author’s work. The Dead Zone, Christine, and Cujo. Now common usage to explain a mean dog, Cujo had next to zero meaning to people who picked the book up ready to read King’s first all out horror novel in years. Like Drew...

By 2022, Stephen King adaptations were five years into a renaissance that began with 2017’s adaptation of It. And after his successful Halloween legacy series began with a bang with 2018’s Halloween, producer Jason Blum also wanted to get in on the act of adapting King. So he hired Zac Effron and director Keith Thomas (The Vigil) to once again bring King’s Firestarter to the screen. Join Garrett,...

After E.T., Drew Barrymore could have done anything. Turns out that producer Dino de Laurentiis was about to scoop her up to be in two adaptations of author Stephen King’s work. The second, Cat’s Eye, is one we already covered way back at the beginning of Night Shift. But the first was Firestarter, King’s borderline science fiction novel about a girl who sets fires with her mind. Join the Three Me...

After 1994’s The Stand proved to be a monumental hit, ABC and other networks were intent on bringing other Stephen King properties to the small screen. This is why we got things like The Langoliers, The Tommyknockers, Kingdom Hospital, among others. But 20 plus years later, there were once again rumblings that The Stand was going to be adapted, this time with one film for the big screen. Directors...

1983 was quite the year for fans of author Stephen King. That was the year they didn’t get one, or even two King adaptations for the screen. They got three. These consisted of The Dead Zone, Cujo, and Christine. The other two will get their just due on this podcast down the road. But today, we review The Dead Zone. A film touted as the teaming up of schlock director David Cronenberg (he wouldn’t m...

Much to two of their chagrins, podcast hosts are back to Stephen King! To kick off this set of reviews, they’re reviewing two adaptations of what many King fans STILL call his best novel. Ladies and gentlemen, we bring you The Stand. After years of trying to get a feature film adaptation of his beloved epic novel off the ground, King saw what ABC did with a miniseries adaptation of his novel It, a...

In 2024, armed with a script by Jason Fuchs (Ice Age Continental Drift and Pan), director Matthew Vaughn released Argylle. Denounced by critics and audiences alike, the $200 million film didn’t even gross half its budget back. Yet, the film has enjoyed a healthy presence on streaming, meaning there is a good chance Vaughn may get his wish and continue on with the Kingsman franchise. Which, this is...

With The Golden Circle making almost as much as the original Kingsman movie, Fox felt like they had a franchise on its hands. Yet, director Matthew Vaughn had plans that had nothing to do with continuing the story of Eggsy. Instead, he wanted to pull a George Lucas and go back to the beginning. The result is 2021’s The King’s Man, a WW1 set prequel that tells the story about how The Kingsman came...

Two years after setting the box office ablaze with Kingsman The Secret Service, director Matthew Vaughn was back with Kingsman The Golden Circle. This time, he had a couple more Oscar winners (Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore) cast, as well as a certain flamboyant singer. So given he had everything he wanted at his disposal this time, it would seem Vaughn had successfully made his ‘Empire Strikes Back...

After taking on Kick Ass and proving his worth with X-Men First Class, it would seem director Matthew Vaughn was primed for a career directing Marvel properties. But for reasons that are still unclear, Vaughn left X-Men Days of Future Past, and reunited with writer Mark Millar to come up with their own comic book called Kingsman. Before long, Vaughn had another property to take on and in 2015, he...

Time to take a quick detour into yet another movie that most don't associate with Marvel. Despite being part of Disney theatrical animated features, Big Hero 6 does indeed come from the comic world. To what extent is discussed on the show. Following up Disney's Frozen was no small feat either. How did this colorful futuristic superhero tale fare for our three hosts? Listen in and come back next we...

While a sequel to Kick-Ass wasn't the unlikeliest occurrence, losing director Matthew Vaughn did create some concern. They also lost Nicolas Cage but gained an actor of similar stature in Jim Carrey. What they didn't plan on was for the later to walk back his involvement as the movie was about to come out. Did he have a point or was this sequel just as good as the original? Come back next week as...

After a few weeks of Marvel that the boys would love to forget, one thing is for sure about Kick Ass. It’s at least competent filmmaking. Or is it? Join Matt, Garrett, and Adam as they dive into director Matthew Vaughn’s controversial 2010 1st entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Does the gang think the controversy is warranted? Does Kick Ass still hold up? Just download the show and listen y...

As the boys continue tredging through their Miscellaneous Marvel characters, this week they have run into a doozy. Man Thing is a character who hung out with Howard The Duck in the comics. But other than that, there’s not much identification with him apart from being a side show character made up right around the time DC’s Swamp Thing made its first appearance. So who better to bring it to the scr...

Full Moon Entertainment and comic book films are two subjects that fit together like a round peg in a square hole. After all, Full Moon was known for schlocky horror properties like the killer doll series Puppet Master, the vampire series Subspecies, and many others. So why the hell would studio head Charles Band try taking on the Marvel property Doctor Strange only to switch gears (and the name)...

For years, the three of us have been asked when we were going to start covering Marvel films. After all, we did the two big DC characters over the span of a couple years. Why, in the years that we’ve been together, and Marvel has gone from being on top of the world to being just another Disney acquisition, have we not also dived right into the Marvel page to screen adaptations? Well, we get into a...

Well, we were going to get to it eventually. When Transformers One was released in the fall of 2024, we at Percolated Media were up to our eyes in Stephen King and Beetlejuice retrospectives. Garrett and Matt wanted to wait until the schedule was in between retros before finally reviewing the latest fighting robots film, this one directed by Josh Cooley (Toy Story 4). They weren’t the only ones wh...

By the time 1998 rolled around, everyone involved in the Lethal Weapon franchise were on to other things. Most notably star Mel Gibson, whose directorial effort Braveheart had won multiple Oscars three years before. You’d think it would have taken an almost perfect script to reunite everyone for a fourth and final(?) installment of the bread and butter franchise that set up their careers. I said,...

After Lethal Weapon 2 came out and became the third highest grossing film of that year, producers wanted more. So Jeffrey Boam, along with his buddy Robert Mark Kamen (The Karate Kid) once again churned out a script, director Richard Donner came aboard, and everything was one big happy shoot! Of course, this isn’t the whole story. So download the show below to find out how Lethal Weapon 3 REALLY h...

As we’ve already covered at other times on this podcast, 1989 was a golden year for film, specifically the action genre. Since we already reviewed Batman (1989) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), it is now time to cover that year’s third place box office winner, Lethal Weapon 2. Franchises weren’t really a thing yet, but after the splash the first Lethal Weapon made on video, not to me...

Though we’ve done the Superman series (check our archives for those shows) we would be reminded if we did not cover the OTHER franchise director Richard Donner made into a successful series of films. With a script by a hot shot scriptwriter named Shane Black, Donner set off to turn Lethal Weapon into a slam bang stand alone film. We know how that turned out. But before we get to the sequels, we ha...

After 11 movies and almost 40 years, we are finally at the end of our Children of the Corn retrospective. We'll be closing the book on Night Shift and moving on to other King works later in the year. We have unfinished business to do as we rank all these movies at the end of this show and also divulge our first retro of 2025. Enjoy and thanks to both you all and our co-hosts for being troopers in...

In the same year that another horror franchise made a legacy sequel to its original installment, Children of the Corn did the same thing. Is Runaway an improvement in an aspect from the vast majority of these entries? We'll be closing out this retrospective next time by reviewing 2020 as well as ranking every entry. Then we'll reveal our first retro of 2025. Enjoy!

Only two more to go before we can leave this franchise in Gatlin!