CBS adapting Stephen King’s The Stand as a 10-part event series
By Dan Selcke
Stephen King released The Stand, his sweeping post-apocalyptic epic, in 1978, fairly early on in his career. However, at 1,153 pages, The Stand is still his longest individual book to date, and has endured in the popular imagination next to works like Carrie, The Shining and IT. Now, Entertainment Weekly reports that CBS is turning the book into a 10-part event series for CBS All Access, to be written by Josh Boone and Ben Cavell. Boone, who has a long history with the novel, will also direct.
"I read The Stand under my bed when I was 12, and my Baptist parents burned it in our fireplace upon discovery. Incensed, I stole my dad’s FedEx account number and mailed King a letter professing my love for his work. Several weeks later, I came home to find a box had arrived from Maine, and inside were several books, each inscribed with a beautiful note from god himself, who encouraged me in my writing and thanked me for being a fan. My parents, genuinely moved by King’s kindness and generosity, lifted the ban on his books that very day. I wrote King a cameo as himself in my first film and have been working to bring The Stand to the screen for five years. I’ve found incredible partners in CBS All Access and Ben Cavell. Together with Stephen King, Owen King, my longtime producing partners Knate Lee and Jill Killington, we plan to bring you the ultimate version of King’s masterwork."
Smells like destiny.
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King himself is on board, too. “I’m excited and so very pleased that The Stand is going to have a new life on this exciting new platform,” he said in a statement. “The people involved are men and women who know exactly what they’re doing; the scripts are dynamite. The result bids to be something memorable and thrilling. I believe it will take viewers away to a world they hope will never happen.”
The Stand is about a world where a strain of influenza modified for biological warfare kills over 99% of the world’s population. In this vacuum, a guy named Randall Flagg — he’s basically Satan — rises up and tries to establish a new evil world order, and it’s up to several pure-hearted characters to make a, ahem, stand against him. So yeah, we probably don’t want to live in that world. Watching it is cool, though.
Julie McNamara, executive vice president of original content at CBS All Access, also weighed in:
"With over 400 million books sold around the world, Stephen King is one of our greatest living authors and The Stand is widely considered the crown jewel of his work. Millions of fans have been waiting for a modern interpretation that delivers on its depth, scope and ambition. We are thrilled to be working with Stephen, Josh, Ben and a dedicated team working passionately to bring this brilliant material to life."
I dunno about The Stand being “widely considered the crow jewel” of King’s work, but you do you, Julie. Also, if you raised an eyebrow over McNamara saying that fans have been waiting for a “modern interpretation,” it’s because she’s talking around a 1994 miniseries version of the Stand, also made by NBC, that was well-liked at the time but has aged somewhat poorly:
That opening is still pretty great, though:
The original miniseries was only four episodes. This new one, made in the golden age of TV after shows like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones have changed the game, is a meatier 10. I’m sure this new version will cut down on the cheese from the original miniseries, and I’m glad that ABC chose to make a limited number of episodes rather than have it be an open-ended series. There’s too much of that going around these days.
There have been no casting announcements as of yet, nor is there a release date. Still, we’ll keep an eye on this one.
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