Summary

• Stand By Me launched Rob Reiner from ex-sitcom star to cinematic voice of a generation with an influential coming-of-age drama.
• Stand By Me removed Reiner's "comedic" label, leading to his subsequent triumphant fantasy film The Princess Bride.
• Reiner's interest in The Princess Bride was sparked by Stand By Me's success, setting the stage for his classic directorial career.

Rob Reiner achieved a rare string of smashes when he first stepped into the director's chair in 1984. Between his debut with the mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap and the courtroom drama A Few Good Men in 1992, he directed seven movies. Six of them are indisputable classics, with the seventh -- 1985's The Sure Thing -- forced to settle for being one of the best teen comedies of the 1980s. It's a formidable winning streak that saw Reiner go from ex-sitcom star to one of the most notable cinematic voices of his generation.

The film that best marked that transition was Stand by Me, based on a coming-of-age novella by Stephen King. It's still considered one of the greatest King adaptations of all time, as well as launching its young stars to notable careers. On top of its stand-alone accomplishments, it was likely responsible for Reiner's subsequent film, The Princess Bride. The adaptation of William Goldman's fractured fairy tale is another unabashed triumph for the director, as well as one of the greatest fantasy movies ever made. Without Stand by Me, it probably never would have happened.

How Rob Reiner's Stand By Me Broke the Mold

From the beginning, Stand by Me was a very different Stephen King project, starting with the original novella on which the movie is based. "The Body" first appeared in King's 1982 anthology Different Seasons, which contained four separate pieces in genres other than horror. The collection also included "Apt Pupil," and "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption," both of which saw subsequent film adaptations of their own. At the time, however, the author was almost exclusively associated with horror, and his magnum opus It was released just a few weeks after Stand by Me premiered in theaters.

The film was also an ambitious project for Reiner at the time. He had made his directorial debut just two years earlier with Spinal Tap, followed by the well-regarded The Sure Thing. Both were light, entertaining films that drew upon his experiences as an actor on the groundbreaking sitcom All in the Family. Stand By Me was cut from an entirely different cloth: a delicate coming-of-age drama cloaked in the more traditionally King-style notion of the search for a human corpse. That combination of elements could stymie even the best directors, and Reiner's background in comedy did not initially seem like a good fit.

It turned out better than anyone could have predicted. Critics raved about it, box office receipts were healthy, and King himself claimed it was the first fully successful adaptation of his work in the commentary for the film's Blu-ray release. The story concerns four twelve-year-old boys who set out in search of a human body rumored to have been killed by a train. They hope to claim the reward money. Instead, their journey becomes a final celebration of their childhood, a reckoning with the horrors of the adult world, and a fundamental affirmation of their friendship. It removed the "comedic" rider from Reiner's directorial credentials, and opened the way for bigger successes still to come. The first big success was The Princess Bride.

The Princess Bride Was Considered Unfilmable

Author William Goldman penned The Princess Bride in 1973, after finding considerable success in Hollywood as a screenwriter. He had already won a Best Screenplay Oscar in 1969 for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and would win a second for 1976's All the President's Men. Naturally, The Princess Bride attracted a good deal of attention from the big studios, which Goldman himself discussed in his autobiographical collection The Big Picture?: Who Killed Hollywood and Other Essays.

The most promising effort was the first. 20th Century Fox bought the rights to the book almost immediately and agreed to let Goldman himself pen the screenplay. Director Richard Lester was signed to helm the feature, and with subsequent credentials including Robin and Marian, Royal Flash and two well-regarded adaptations of The Three Musketeers, he felt like the perfect choice. Unfortunately, the deal fell through when Fox's head of production was fired and his existing projects were put on hiatus. Goldman bought the rights to The Princess Bride back and commenced looking for the right director.

That proved a nearly impossible process, despite a number of prominent filmmakers interested in adapting the book. Francois Truffaut and Robert Redford both made efforts, only to abandon them early in the process for various reasons. Goldman remained very protective of the property, which required a delicate touch that wouldn't necessarily work with a studio-hired journeyman filmmaker. Classic swashbuckling fell out of fashion after Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope gave the genre a space-age makeover. It left The Princess Bride in development hell, like so many projects before and since.

Rob Reiner Became The Princess Bride's Champion

Rob Reiner was keenly interested in adapting The Princess Bride. In a 2017 interview with Variety, he said that he'd loved the book ever since his father Carl Reiner had given him a copy as a gift. Stand by Me provided him with a possible chance, as he broke out of straightforward comedies and demonstrated his capabilities with a broader array of genres. During production of the film, he took a meeting with Paramount Pictures, who expressed interest in supporting his next project. That changed when he told them it was The Princess Bride. "Anything but that," was the response.

Reiner soon learned that no studio wanted to touch the project, which made him all the more eager to direct it himself. Help came in the form of Norman Lear, the creator of All in the Family, who believed in Reiner's abilities and had funded Spinal Tap in 1984. He came through again for The Princess Bride, agreeing to finance the movie so that Reiner could make it. 20th Century Fox agreed to distribute the film, and Goldman wrote the screenplay. It was part of a larger process of serendipity that helped make the film an almost certain evergreen.

Cary Elwes, who plays Wesley in the film, had grown up reading the novel and loved it dearly. The rest of the casting was pitch perfect, from Robin Wright's debut as Princess Buttercup to Billy Crystal and Carol Kane stealing the show as Miracle Max and Valerie. Goldman's dialogue is some of the most quotable in movie history, and deft touches like the framing device of an old man reading the story to his sick grandson neatly encapsulate some of the book's celebrated self-awareness.

Perhaps most importantly, Barry Diller -- who was then head of 20th Century Fox -- encouraged Reiner to give the movie a timeless quality rather than tailoring it to the moment for fleeting box office success. It was a slow burn, to be sure, and Reiner has spoken about the disappointment he felt when The Princess Bride initially struggled at the box office. Biller's suggestion proved prophetic, however, and the VHS and cable boom of the 1980s allowed millions of future fans who missed its theatrical run to discover it on video.

Stand by Me Made The Princess Bride Possible

Rob Reiner had been interested in making The Princess Bride almost immediately upon the success of Spinal Tap, but lacked the clout to undertake his own projects. Both The Sure Thing and Stand by Me were work-for-hire productions where the studios paid him to direct their movie for them. Had he been less keen to make The Princess Bride specifically -- if he had an alternate idea in mind or wasn't quite so passionate about it -- he might have passed it over in favor of something else.

Instead, The Princess Bride was made as well as anyone could possibly make it, and Reiner went on to direct future classics When Harry Met Sally, Misery, and A Few Good Men. Without Stand by Me, and the attention its director had been garnering, the conversation might not have happened, and the film wouldn't have been made. No one would have noticed amid Reiner's other cinematic accomplishments and the book would have remained a footnote in Goldman's career. The timing was right, and Stand by Me was showing Hollywood that Reiner could do more than comedy. The result was one of the greatest fantasy movies ever made.

The Princess Bride is currently streaming on Disney+. Stand by Me is currently streaming on Pluto.