Up until now, CBS All Access has been the de facto “Star Trek” network, as the streaming service has struggled to gain traction outside of the sci-fi franchise. That being said, later this year, CBS All Access is going to adapt one of Stephen King’s most revered novels, “The Stand,” for a new star-studded limited series, in an attempt to show that the streaming service is more than just spaceships.
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And in a new Vanity Fair piece, fans of the novel can see the first look photos of what the latest adaptation of “The Stand” looks like. The new version of the King classic comes from showrunners Benjamin Cavell and Taylor Elmore, who worked together on the popular FX series “Justified.” The first episode of the limited series comes from director Josh Boone, who previously helmed “The Fault in Our Stars” and the upcoming “The New Mutants.”
And according to one of the showrunners, working on “The Stand” in an era where a global pandemic is wreaking havoc in real-life has been interesting.
“It was very surreal, obviously, to start to realize that there was a creeping pandemic the way there was at the beginning of our show,” Cavell said.
And even though “The Stand” doesn’t feature a post-apocalypse brought on by a viral outbreak, Stephen King does notice the similarities between what’s going on in his story and current events.
“When you hear reports that 100,000 or 240,000 people are going to die, you’ve got to take notice, and it is going to be bad. It’s bad right now,” said the author. “It’s brought the economy to a complete stop. In a lot of ways, I mean, you see the pictures of Times Square or London, and you say, ‘It really is like The Stand.’”
The new limited series stars Jovan Adepo, Heather Graham, James Marsden, Whoopi Goldberg, Henry Zaga, Greg Kinnear, Amber Heard, Odessa Young, Owen Teague, Nat Wolff, and Alexander Skarsgård as the evil Randall Flagg.
The CBS All Access adaptation of “The Stand” is expected to arrive later this year. You can see the first-look photos below.
