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Jerry O\u2019Connell, Corey Feldman and Wil Wheaton were already thinking about \u201cStand by Me\u201d when Rob Reiner died<\/a> in December. Just a week prior, the trio spent a weekend together attending some screenings of Reiner\u2019s beloved coming-of-age film<\/a>, which was about to turn 40. <\/p>\n The memories from that formative 1985 summer in Oregon were flooding back and they were having fun being together again. As Feldman told The Associated Press in a group Zoom with Wheaton and O’Connell, he was \u201cvery grateful to be back with my bros.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve stayed in touch loosely through the years and we\u2019ve gotten together here and there,\u201d Feldman said. \u201cBut there\u2019s never been a time that the three of us just hung out \u2026 it was like a high school reunion, but only for three people that really got it.\u201d<\/p>\n Remembering Rob Reiner<\/p>\n It was just the start of a multi-city tour that had been long in the works. Then the Reiner news broke, and they knew they had each other. <\/p>\n \u201cMy first thought was, \u2018I am so glad that I have a place to land with my grief,’\u201d Wheaton said. \u201cThere\u2019s not a lot of other people in the world who really know what this feels like.\u201d<\/p>\n For better or worse, in some ways they\u2019d been here before with their co-star River Phoenix, who died in 1993. At a 25th anniversary screening, they remembered Reiner saying to no one in particular that it \u201cfeels like there should be a chair here for River.\u201d<\/p>\n And in that spirit, O\u2019Connell, Feldman and Wheaton started figuring out what they could do to honor and remember<\/a> the filmmaker who not only changed their lives but who gave them an experience they\u2019ve all been chasing ever since.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know how much Rob loved \u2018Stand by Me.\u2019 We know what it meant to him,\u201d Wheaton said. \u201cIt never occurred to me to just shelve it all. I thought, well, now we really have to get out there.\u201d<\/p>\n Wheaton and O’Connell were also among those who stood on the Oscars stage<\/a> for the Reiner tribute. Feldman was not there, because he was not invited, he said on social media. The show’s representatives did not respond to the AP’s request for comment. <\/p>\n But the trio will continue on together. The tour still has a handful of stops left<\/a>, in Anaheim, California; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; Indianapolis and Chicago. And for broader audiences, a 4K restoration of the film is coming back to select theaters<\/a> in the U.S. and Canada for one week starting Friday.<\/p>\n The movie that almost never was<\/p>\n People like to say that Hollywood doesn\u2019t make movies like \u201cStand by Me\u201d anymore, but, in 1985, they weren\u2019t exactly clamoring to make it either. Yes, it was based on a Stephen King novella, but it was also a small hangout movie with no stars. Just four 12-year-old boys on a quest to find a dead body.<\/p>\n Though Reiner had hits under his belt as a filmmaker, everyone passed. And even he had modest expectations for its reach: As Reiner told his screenwriters, according to a New York Times article in 1986, \u201cThere\u2019s no way this picture is going to do business, because no one who went to \u2018Rambo\u2019 will go to see our film.\u201d<\/p>\n Somewhat ironically, O\u2019Connell told the AP, \u201cRambo: First Blood Part II\u201d was the movie he saw the night before he boarded the plane to Oregon to film \u201cStand by Me\u201d and that, \u201cas an 11-year-old, I thought it was the greatest film I had seen in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n