Sony Pictures Home Entertainment(NEW YORK) — The classic ’80s movie Stand by Me celebrates its 30th anniversary on Monday.
The Rob Reiner-directed film, based on the Stephen King novella The Body, debuted in limited release on August 8, 1986, before expanding wide a couple of weeks later. The story followed four boys as they searched for the body of a missing teen in Oregon in the 1950s.
Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman and Jerry O’Connell played the group of friends. The cast also included Kiefer Sutherland and Richard Dreyfuss, who narrated the story as an adult version of Wheaton’s Gordie Lachance.
Stand by Me made more than 47 million dollars at the domestic box office in 1986, according to BoxOfficeMojo, and went on to earn two Golden Globe nominations and one Oscar nomination, the latter for its screenplay.
The movie is also remembered for featuring Ben E. King’s classic song of the same name.
Sadly, Phoenix died in 1993 of a drug overdose at the age of 23. The other young actors in Stand by Me have remained active in the acting world to this day.
Wheaton, a star on Star Trek: The Next Generation, has made appearances on The Big Bang Theory; Feldman followed Stand by Me with other notable projects like The Lost Boys, and now lends his voice to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon; O’Connell had roles in the TV series Sliders and the Tom Cruise flick Jerry Maguire, and has worked on various TV shows in recent years; and Sutherland’s credits include a number of movies — including The Lost Boys — as well as TV’s 24 and the upcoming ABC series Designated Survivor.
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