After a number of projects on both the big and small screen have stalled out over the years, a reboot of Stephen King’s The Stand is now finally, officially happening.
CBS All Access has ordered all ten episodes of a new television adaptation of The Stand to be produced, written, and directed by Josh Boone. Boone, who wrote and directed The Fault in Our Stars and the upcoming X-Men horror film The New Mutants, has been trying to get a Stand adaptation made for some time. In a statement, the filmmaker — a massive fan of the novel — seemed pretty psyched about finally getting the opportunity to adapt the story:
“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 (fellow producer) 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.”
The Stand is a tale about a looming battle between the survivors in a post-apocalyptic American wasteland as they respectively flock to leaders representing the opposing forces of good and evil. With a large cast of characters and no clear protagonist, the massive book seems like a much more natural fit for a limited television series than a feature film. Naturally, the work was adapted to TV once before in a 1994 four-part ABC miniseries. That version, which starred Gary Sinise and Molly Ringwald, received generally favorable reviews at the time but is largely considered dated today, with fans long clamoring for a more modern update. Now, they’re finally getting their wish.
No word yet on casting or when The Stand will start streaming, but it looks like the project is actually finally happening for real this time.
Image courtesy of ABC
