TV

Stephen King’s All-Time Masterpiece ‘The Stand’ Is Getting Turned Into A TV Series

King fans rejoice!

by Joseph Earp  31 January 2019
Stephen King's The Stand is being turned into a TV series

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Stephen King‘s The Stand is the kind of book that you can spend the rest of your goshdarn life thinking about.

King’s post-apocalyptic, U.S.-set response to The Lord Of The Rings is a sprawling, multi-character epic; a clash between good and evil that takes place in a world recovering from the outbreak of a deadly virus.

The Stand is King at his best, filled with deeply loveable characters (the Christ-like Mother Abigail! The staunch and resilient Stuart Redman!), and deeply repugnant villains (the incel-like Harold Lauder! The terrifying Randall Flagg!)

It’s the kind of sprawling story that was ready-made for television (and it’s already been adapted for the small screen once), but contemporary attempts at a reboot have always fallen flat on their face — until now.

Yep, King fans rejoice: a ten-episode first season of The Stand is going ahead at CBS.

The adaptation is being spearheaded by Josh Boone. Boone’s CV might give some diehard horror fans a bit of a pause — he is, weirdly, the director of The Fault In Our Stars film adaptation, and his latest flick, an X-Men spin-off called The New Mutants has been pushed back from release again and again.

But Boone’s commitment to The Stand shouldn’t be doubted. He’s been trying to adapt the novel for some five years now, first as two overstuffed feature films, then as a massive TV series, and he’s been a King for most of his adult life, as he made clear in a very cute anecdote that accompanied the series announcement.

“I read The Stand under my bed when I was 12, and my Baptist parents burned it in our fireplace upon discovery,” Boone said. “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.”

So there you have it: what the man might lack in horror credentials, he more than makes up for in sheer, unbridled enthusiasm. Personally, we can’t wait to see what he does with the book.

Stay tuned for casting announcements and more details over the coming months.