The Stand is one of Stephen King’s most epic stories. Over the course of the novel, we see the collapse of civilization as a superflu wipes out 99.4% of the world’s population, the immune survivors struggling to stay alive in an abandoned America, the formation of new societies and a clash for the soul of humanity. This is told through an enormous number of characters and some very complex intertwined plotting.
Adapting it for live-action is a tricky proposition, then, but we’re soon to see the latest attempt from The New Mutants director Josh Boone and showrunner Benjamin Cavell. They’ve boiled down the story into a nine-episode limited series which begins airing on CBS next week. We’ve already seen images of the cast and a very cool trailer, but now we’ve got an even better look at it courtesy of some new photos, which you can check out below.
Several of the stars have also recently discussed the project with EW and one element that inevitably came up was the eerie coincidence of working on a show about a devastating flu epidemic just as COVID-19 hit. Nat Wolff, who plays Lloyd Henreid, said the following about that:
“I got spooked. Suddenly everybody was saying, ‘Oh, [COVID -19] is just like the flu’ [like in the show], and I’m reading about prisoners in Italy lighting toilet paper on fire to get attention – I had just shot a scene where I was doing that. I went into panic mode.”
But Cavell is keen to note that the superflu (known in the book as Captain Trips) is only the instigating event for the plot rather than its focus. After all, all of our characters are immune and once the mass deaths have stopped, it ceases to become a major part of the story.
“Captain Trips is the mechanism by which the world gets emptied out so that King can do his Lord of the Rings in the United States and set up a walk to Mordor.”
Judging from the trailer, it seems that a lot of time has been put into creating the Satanic and dark world of Randall Flagg and fans of the book will be eager to see Alexander Skarsgård playing one of King’s most diabolical villains. But even if you’ve read the novel and seen the previous TV series, you can expect to be in for some surprises. The author himself has written a new ending for the show, so who knows which way this post-apocalyptic battle between good and evil will go down this time?
The Stand premieres on CBS All Access on December 17th.