Stephen King wrote a novel as the 1980s came to an end that helped him kill his alter ego. King got his start writing horror novels, with his first published novel, Carrie, an instant success, and even spawned a movie just two years later. This was great for his career, but it limited him to life as a horror author.

King tried to change this by creating a pseudonym named Richard Bachman, which he then used to write other genres, mostly crime and thriller-related. He achieved limited success as Bachman, and after his cover was blown following the release of Thinner, King retired the pseudonym. However, he had one last thing to do before ending it.

King published a book in 1989 called The Dark Half, which was adapted into an underrated King movie in 1993 starring Timothy Hutton. In this book, Hutton plays Thad Beaumont, an author who used the pseudonym George Stark to write thrillers. When he tried to retire this pseudonym, his alter ego came to life and tried to destroy him.

Stephen King Used The Dark Half To Kill His Richard Bachman Persona

It was easy to see the similarities between Stephen King’s “Richard Bachman” books and Thad Beaumont’s “George Stark” books. Both men created alter egos to write books out of their wheelhouse and then decided to shut things down. King even wrote in the author’s note in the book, “I am indebted to the late Richard Bachman.”

The book also referenced another author, as mystery writer Donald E. Westlake used the pseudonym Richard Stark to write darker, more violent books, which is where King drew inspiration for the name George Stark. However, the story was more in line with his being outed as Richard Bachman after writing the horror novel Thinner.

Thinner came out five years earlier, and a man figured out Bachman’s real idenтιтy and sent a letter to King with his suspicions. That marked the end of Bachman as an author (for a few years), and then King wrote The Dark Half as a way to symbolically kill his alter ego once and for all.

The Dark Half sees the alter ego come to life and torment the author. In Bev Vincent’s A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences, he writes that King said he considered Bachman ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, but then had an epiphany:

“For a while I started to think, ‘Suppose Bachman wasn’t ᴅᴇᴀᴅ?’ And immediately the idea jumped to mind: What if a guy has a pen name that didn’t want to stay ᴅᴇᴀᴅ and isn’t that an interesting idea and how would that work out?”

The book revealed that Alan not only subconsciously created Stark, who then became a threat to his life and that of his wife, but also that, somewhere deep inside, Thad actually liked George. This then allowed Stephen King to kill Stark, and vicariously Richard Bachman, in The Dark Half.

Richard Bachman Was More Successful Than King Expected

In the intro to the collection called The Bachman Books, Stephen King wrote that The Dark Half is the book his wife dislikes because it shows how the pen name could overshadow the author’s ability to become a good man. What is interesting is that the Bachman books continued to thrive, even after King killed Bachman.

There were two movies based on Bachman books, both coming after King’s idenтιтy was revealed. Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in The Running Man in 1987, and Child’s Play director Tom Holland directed the adaptation of Thinner in 1996. The Running Man is a cult classic, and Thinner is mostly forgotten.

Rage became a H๏τ topic when Stephen King pulled it from distribution in response to the high rate of school shootings in America, since it is from the point of view of a school shooter. The Long Walk has been a long-time dream project, with names like George Romero, Frank Darabont, and André Øvredal all attached at one point.

Stephen King eventually resurrected Richard Bachman. First came a gimmick where King wrote Desperation in 1996 and released a second book by Bachman the same year, The Regulators, both of which shared characters with the same names in different genre stories. In 2007, Bachman was back with the book Blaze.

Stephen King Has Two Richard Bachman Movies Coming Out In 2025

Stephen King has several adaptations with a 2025 release date, including The Monkey and the TV series The Insтιтute. However, he also has two Richard Bachman books coming to theaters.

The Long Walk finally arrives in theaters in September 2025, directed by Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games). This tells a dystopian story of a group of young men who set out for a long walk, with the winner receiving a fortune and everyone else being gunned down in the streets, one by one.

Then, in November, Edgar Wright (Shaun of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, H๏τ Fuzz) directs a second version of The Running Man, which is intended to play closer to the themes of the Richard Bachman novel than the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie did. While Stephen King “killed” Bachman in The Dark Half, his alter ego lives on.

Sources: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences by Bev Vincent