Why The Stand Series Could Be The Best Stephen King TV Adaptation So Far

The miniseries is anticipated to be the best Stephen King series yet, due to its large audience, relatable storyline, all-star cast, and big budget.

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CBS All Access’s The Stand could possibly be the best Stephen King TV adaptation yet. The show is based on King’s 1978 post-apocalyptic dark fantasy novel, which centers on a group of survivors facing a global pandemic that has wiped out almost the entire world. These survivors create their own social system and interact with other groups of people. The upcoming miniseries is set to release on December 17, 2020.

The Stand, which is often considered one of King’s best works, has already been adapted for the screen. In 1994, an eight-episode miniseries based on the novel aired on ABC, written by King himself. Among the cast members were Gary Sinise, Adam Storke, Molly Ringwald, and Rob Lowe, with cameos by actors including John Landis, Ed Harris, Kathy Bates, and even King himself. This adaptation was critically acclaimed and got nominated for six Primetime Emmy Awards; it won two for makeup and sound mixing. Today’s television audience, though, might view this adaptation as dated, with old technology and processes as well as unfamiliar faces.

Several other works by King have been adapted for the screen over the decades, too, even in more recent years. Ones that have been made into TV series include Salem’s Lot, IT, Under The Dome, The Mist, Castle Rock, Creepshow, and The Outsider, among numerous others. While most of these shows were generally well-received by critics and audiences, especially King fans, they probably won’t hold a candle to the upcoming TV adaptation of The Stand. This is due in large part due to the upcoming show’s anticipated large audience, relatable storyline, all-star cast, and big budget, among other aspects.

The Stand will certainly see more success than past King shows solely because it has a much larger television audience than past ones have had. Due to the continuing public health crisis as well as the approaching holiday season, people are hunkering down at home, especially during the cold winter months. So, they’re turning to their TVs for entertainment options, looking for new content to watch. A show about survivors grappling with a deadly pandemic is certainly a reliable and eye-catching option. For example, when the COVID-19 pandemic started, audiences turned to numerous pandemic-related media and movies like Contagion and I Am Legend saw new levels of popularity as a result.

The all-star cast will certainly aid in the success of the show, too. Among the notable cast members of the 10-hour limited series are James Marsden as Stu Redman, Amber Heard as Nadine Cross, Whoopi Goldberg as Mother Abagail, Greg Kinnear as Glen Bateman, Odessa Young as Frannie Goldsmith, Alexander Skarsgard as Randall Flagg, and Henry Zaga as Nick Andros. Additionally, the 2020 version of The Stand—which features a completely new ending written by King— has a much bigger budget than past shows based on King books have had. The 1990s version was given only a $6 million budget per episode. Today, TV shows that want to make it require budgets similar to those of feature films.

Furthermore, the series will stream on the CBS All-Access platform. This streaming service isn’t the same as normal network TV, so the content will not be as restricted. In the past, nearly all of King’s television adaptations have aired on cable television—save for the recent ones—so the full gory details of the horror tales could not be depicted properly. This happened with the 1990s TV adaptation of The Stand; King had to tone down the horror and violence when he was writing the screenplay, which affected the creativity of the storylines. As King said on the Post Mortem podcast last year:

“…We’re free of all those things that held us back with [the original mini-series]. Not only is the budget bigger… we’re free… in terms of language, in terms of violence… in a way that we weren’t with the original.”

Of course, the recent King TV adaptation of the 2018 crime drama novel The Outsider also streamed it had an impressive cast including Jason Bateman and Cynthia Erivo. However, it was canceled after just one season. This was partly because the plot points behind The Outsider were often big reaches, with viewers unable to relate to the characters or supernatural elements. Plus, the pace and length of the show was criticized. As a miniseries, though, The Stand won’t have to face renewal, and because it only has nine episodes in which to tell its story, its pace won’t be able to become slow or tired. Moreover, the story behind The Stand is much more relatable than The Outsider, because the plot centers on how the world is reacting to a global pandemic. When the book came out in 1978, critics praised how believable the story was and how relatable the characters were, so today, the series will surely be even more appealing.

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