Everybody has different tolerance levels and expectations from watching a film. There are some who want laughs, romance, and light entertainment… and there are others who love devastating drama and hardcore horror. Understanding where you exist on this scale can greatly enhance your watching habits, but there will always be certain titles that can challenge you. To use an example from the 2025 movie release calendar: do you think you’re ready to stomach the big screen experience of director Francis Lawrence’s The Long Walk?

Addressing that question is the main subject of this week’s edition of The King Beat, but it’s not the exclusive subject, as the past few days in the world of Stephen King have also offered us some interesting insight from the author about one of his most beloved works: The Stand. There’s a lot to discuss, so let’s dig in!

The Long Walk Clip Features The Movie’s First Death, And It’s A Good Test To See If You Can Handle The Stephen King Adaptation

While The Long Walk is still a few weeks away from release, one of the most interesting developments in the entertainment world in the last few days has been the hype that has come with the lifting of the film’s embargo on social media reactions. Critics who have attended early screenings have greatly praised the upcoming Stephen King adaptation – and I personally was a voice in that chorus on Tuesday night. I can’t presently say much more about it than what I included in my reaction posts on BlueSky (be on the lookout for my full review here on CinemaBlend at the beginning of next month), but I can emphasize that this is not a movie for the faint of heart – and the first extended clip, which you can watch above, properly illustrates why.

For those of you who are a bit spoiler-phobic and/or haven’t read the book on which the film is based, this clip features the first death in the story – and it’s far from the last. The footage starts out calmly enough, with Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) and Peter McVries (David Jonsson) meeting Harkness (Jordan Gonzalez), who hopes to write a book about the Long Walk if he survives. The tone changes abruptly when the protagonists hear Curly (Roman Griffin Davis) let out yelps of pain: he has a charley horse, and despite assistance from his fellow competitors, he is unable to maintain a three mile-per-hour pace and faces the devastating consequences.

Knowing that there are even people on the CinemaBlend staff who can’t watch the trailer for The Long Walk without crying, I’d say that this clip provides a terrific litmus test for audiences to see whether or not they have the fortitude that is necessary for the specific cinematic experience that this film offers. A little over a year ago, screenwriter JT Mollner told me that there were no intentions to pull any punches with the adaptation, and this bit of footage is an effective preview. It is not pleasant to see the pain and desperation stretched across Curly’s face as his warnings stack up, and nothing is helped by the fact that the character is played by the wonderful young star of Jojo Rabbit, who specifically captivated audiences in the Taika Waititi movie with his innocence.

When he is ultimately killed for being unable to proceed in the competition, the camera doesn’t pan away, nor does the editing have us experience the moment solely via the reactions of the other characters. Instead, we explicitly see a soldier approach Curly, raise his gun to the boy’s head, and fire a bullet that travels at a downward trajectory to rip open the right side of his face. If you can’t deal with what this clip shows, then you may want to proverbially sit this one out. As graphic and horrific as this moment is, the reality is that it’s the tip of the iceberg as far as extreme content goes.

Based on the first novel that Stephen King ever completed and long thought to be unadaptable both because of its content and structure, The Long Walk is an exceptionally faithful adaptation of its source material that sees 50 teenage boys take part in what is essentially a death march masquerading as a contest. The hope is to be the last participant standing, winning both riches and the ability to make a personal wish – but winning also means witnessing the death of 49 people in your wake.

Do you think you’re ready? I promise you that you are not, but those of you who are nonetheless emotionally fortifying themselves in advance of the movie’s opening weekend are in for an unforgettable film. Also starring Garrett Wareing, Tut Nyot, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Mark Hamill and Judy Greer in addition to the aforementioned Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Jordan Gonzalez, and Roman Griffin Davis, The Long Walk will be arriving in theaters everywhere on September 12.

Stephen King Explains Why Has Never Been Happy With The End Of The Stand

The Stand is a special novel in the large expanse of the Stephen King canon for multiple reasons, but one of its most interesting qualities is that it’s a living document of sorts. When the book was first published in 1978, it was a heavily edited incarnation of the story, with about 400 pages cut from the original manuscript due to length – but King got to reintroduce that material when the version dubbed the “Complete and Uncut Edition” hit stores in 1990. The journey not ending there, he crafted a new draft of the apocalyptic tale when he took on teleplay duties for the 1994 miniseries that was directed by Mick Garris, and he wrote an original coda for the streaming limited series that began airing in 2020.

No other King novel has that kind of strange and evolving history – and that fact is made all the more interesting knowing that the author’s acknowledgement that he never been satisfied with the end of The Stand.

The brand new anthology The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King's The Stand was officially released this past Tuesday (available in hardcover, as an ebook, and on audiobook), and while the tome is generally a must for any Constant Reader, one of its coolest aspects is an introduction that has King looking back at what is arguably his most epic single novel. It begins with him revisiting the book’s final scene with Stu Redman and Fran Goldsmith – the former asking if “people ever learn anything,” and the latter replying that she doesn’t know – and he explains that Fran’s struggle to say something more reflected his own when he was writing the scene.

He writes,

Going further, he explains that his frustration really only mounted with the Complete and Uncut Edition. As happy as he was about the book being restored to its full scope, he continued to find himself dissatisfied with Fran’s last words and still couldn’t come up with something better.

Stephen King explains that back in the mid-1980s, he had a vision of what Stu and Fran’s future together looked like– the couple making the decision to drive back to Maine, and Fran having her own personal encounter with Randall Flag along the way after falling down a well. But he also knew that he wanted to conclude The Stand with his characters still in Boulder, Colorado, and he eventually got his opportunity to tell that part of the story with the aforementioned coda in the 2020 series:

In some other instances, that may have been closure – but Stephen King says that the opportunity to craft the coda for the streaming series is partially what inspired him to approve The End of the World As We Know It as a concept. He admits that he initially balked at the idea of a collection of stories from different authors set in the canon of The Stand, thinking of it like tribute albums dedicated to artists who have passed on, but getting the chance to expand on his own work made him curious about other tales set in a world that has been ravaged by the horrible pandemic nicknamed Captain Trips.

Edited by Christopher Golden and Brian Keene, and featuring contributions from talented writers including Josh Malerman, Paul Tremblay, Nat Cassidy, Bev Vincent, Richard Chizmar, Tim Lebbon and Catriona Ward, The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King's The Stand is now available at retailers everywhere. My copy is in hand, and I’m terrifically excited to dive in.

That brings us to the end of this edition of The King Beat, but news and fun from the world of Stephen King never ceases, and you can be sure that I’ll be back here on CinemaBlend next Thursday with a brand new column highlighting the biggest headlines.

From adaptations of his own books to TV shows like The Simpsons and Frasier, Stephen King has a substantial number of on-screen appearances and cameos. Some of them are extremely memorable (like the opening of Maximum Overdrive where an ATM machine calls him an “asshole”), and some are crazy brief (like a shot of him throwing a ceremonial toss in the Boston Red Sox comedy Fever Pitch). For an author, he has a fair amount of acting experience – but if an actor were to be picked to play King, who would it be?

Stephen King’s personal answer to that interesting question is the subject matter that serves as the lead story of this week’s edition of The King Beat, and it should give Mike Flanagan something to think about as he continues to develop his Dark Tower series. But that’s not all I have for you in this week’s roundup of King news, as there’s also a great Life Of Chuck Easter egg that has been revealed that connects the movie to the epic that is Doctor Sleep and a preview of The End Of The World As We Know It: the upcoming collection of short stories set in the world of The Stand. There’s a lot to go over, so let’s dig in!

When It Comes To Casting Stephen King For Mike Flanagan’s Dark Tower Series, The Author Himself Just Pitched A Potentially Great Pick

Many, many movies and TV shows based on the imagination of Stephen King have been made in the last five decades, with many stories taking direct inspiration from the author’s life (Stand By Me and the series Kingdom Hospital most readily springing to mind), but could we ever see a biopic that centers on King himself? Such a project does not exist, but if the idea does ever start gaining any momentum in Hollywood, there is an actor whom the writer would like to see play him in his current phase of life: Kyle MacLachlan.

The Guardian has published an article that has Stephen King answering a wide variety of questions submitted by fans, and amid subjects such as his dreams and whether or not Dark Tower hero Roland Deschain wears a hat is a query about who would play him in a film about his life. Instead of naming a young star who could portray him in his younger years, King focuses on the present chapter of his life and suggests that the great star of Twin Peaks would be a proper fit for the part:

MacLachlan is 11 years younger than King and he isn’t quite as tall (he is 6’0”, compared to King’s 6’4” stature), but they do have similar body types, and it’s easy to imagine an effective transformation with the application of some good makeup and the right pair of glasses. It’s an intriguing choice… and one to which writer/director Mike Flanagan may want to pay attention.

While a Stephen King biopic isn’t currently in the works, Flanagan is currently developing an adaptation of the Dark Tower series, and King himself becomes a character in that epic in the latter books. MacLachlan wouldn’t be a good fit to play the young King featured in the story who first gets the inspiration to write the story of hero Roland Deschain – but could the 66 year old actor perhaps play the 52-year-old version of the writer who nearly loses his life when he gets hit by a van while out for a walk on the side of a highway? It might be tricky given how much development is left ahead for the TV project, but I certainly wouldn’t object to the idea.

Mike Flanagan Has Revealed A Super Cool Easter Egg Link Between The Life Of Chuck And Doctor Sleep

Released in theaters this summer following its premiere late last year at the Toronto International Film Festival, The Life Of Chuck is a movie that is very much a change of pace for Mike Flanagan. While the filmmaker has long been a dedicated contributor to the horror genre, from Hush to Gerald’s Game to the Netflix series The Haunting Of Hill House, his latest Stephen King adaptation is more in the spirit of The Shawshank Redemption than The Shining, as the work is a life-affirming drama that is filled with love and sadness instead of fear. That being said, the filmmaker has continued his tradition of loading up his works with special Easter eggs, and one that was just revealed and confirmed this past week is super cool.

Stephen King fans everywhere can now enjoy The Life Of Chuck from the comfort of their own homes, as the Neon release is available for digital rental and purchase, and Mike Flanagan has been using his social media accounts to share reactions and answer questions about the movie. Taking notice of something interesting in the film’s second section, titled “Buskers Forever,” one fan asked on Bluesky if a hat belonging to drummer Taylor Franck (played by Taylor Gordon) is the same one that is worn by Rebecca Ferguson’s Rose The Hat in Doctor Sleep, and the filmmaker responded in the affirmative with a three word response:

It probably goes without saying that I absolutely love this. It may be the case that The Life Of Chuck is the first Mike Flanagan project since Oculus not to feature the terrifying and haunted Lasser Glass, but just because the film isn’t horror doesn’t mean that the filmmaker totally turned off his appreciation for Easter eggs in the making of the movie. In the drama, Taylor Franck uses a short top hat to collect tips as she drums for strangers on the street, and one can totally be excused for not recognizing it as the special headgear from Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep.

Of course, the hat isn’t the only special nod to fans that is included in the 2025 Stephen King movie. If you pay attention to the background during “Buskers Forever,” for example, you’ll notice a cherry red 1958 Plymouth Fury rolling around (the same model of car that inspired Christine), and there are also fun cameos made by Eric Vespe and Scott Wampler (RIP), the co-hosts of the popular podcast The Kingcast.

Should you care to try and do some of your own Easter egg hunting, The Life Of Chuck is now available from all major online retailers – including Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, Fandango At Home and Apple. And for those of you who are like me and are dedicated physical media collectors, the film can be pre-ordered on 4K UHD and Blu-ray ahead of its September 30 release date.

The End Of The World As We Know It: New Tales Of Stephen King’s The Stand Arrives In Stores This Month, And An Excerpt Is Now Here For Your Reading Pleasure

It was nearly a half-century ago that Stephen King first introduced his Constant Readers to the world of The Stand, and the work’s pop culture endurance is a proper reflection of the stunning work. Authored as King’s American answer to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings, it is a tome that wows with its vast scope, spectacular collection of characters, and epic battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil. Since the book’s publication, it has been adapted as a miniseries twice and as a Marvel comic, but we’re now on the cusp of getting an extension of the canon that is arguably even more exciting than those projects: the new short story collection The End Of The World As We Know It: New Tales Of Stephen King’s The Stand.

I’ve been writing about the upcoming omnibus from editors Brian Keene and Christopher Golden since late 2003 when the literary project first got the seal of approval from Stephen King, and now it is almost here – set to arrive in stores everywhere next Tuesday. The book includes contributions from a number of talented writers and celebrities, including Paul Tremblay, Richard Chizmar, Joe R. Lansdale, Scott Ian, Alma Katsu, Josh Malerman, Wayne Brady and Tananarive Due, and one of the most exciting things about it is that it will offer in-canon insight regarding what happened outside of the United States during the outbreak of the deadly respiratory disease best known as Captain Trips.

One of these stories, written by author Tim Lebbon, is actually set in outer space, and if you’re not yet totally sold on getting the upcoming book, you can get a taste of the work via an excerpt that has been published by People (in both text and audiobook form). Titled “Grace,” the tale follows the adventures of the titular protagonist, who is stationed on the space shuttle Discovery while all of life on Earth is being wiped out by a pandemic.

The End Of The World As We Know It will officially be available on August 19, and you can put in a pre-order now for hardcover, audiobook and eBook options.

That wraps up this week’s edition of The King Beat, and it has hopefully satiated your desire for all of the latest Stephen King-related updates. But if you can already feel your hunger starting to grow again, the good news is that I’ll be back here on CinemaBlend next Thursday with another new edition of this column and a whole new collection of headlines. Stay tuned for that and more of our King coverage here on the site, and to learn about all of the author’s adaptations that are currently in development, check out our Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV guide.

When it comes to news out of the world of Stephen King from this past week, there is no question as to what was the biggest headline. It has been announced that director Doug Liman has been tapped by Paramount Pictures to spearhead what would be the first film adaptation of The Stand – source material that has already inspired a pair of miniseries (the first in 1994 and the other just five years ago in 2020). The plan is to make just a single movie, not attempting a duology like Andy Muschietti’s IT and IT: Chapter Two, and the search is on for a writer to pen the script. But I think I can save everybody a lot of time, money, and effort: it is not possible to make a proper feature-length adaptation of The Stand, and Hollywood should stop trying.

My thoughts on this particular subject lead this week’s edition of The King Beat, but it’s not a solo headline thanks to Stephen King contributing to The New York Times’ reflection on cinema in the first 25 years of the 21^st century. The takes are hot, so without further ado, let’s dig in!

It’s Not Possible To Make A Single Feature Film Adaptation Of Stephen King’s The Stand, And I Don’t Know Why Hollywood Keeps Trying

In 1982, George A. Romero and Stephen King teamed up to make what would become the first anthology based on King’s work: Creepshow. As a screenwriter, King adapted a couple of his own short stories and created three quick original spooky treats, and as director, Romero aesthetically leaned into the love he shared with his collaborator for old school horror comics like Tales From The Crypt, The Vault Of Horror and The Haunt Of Fear. It was a passion project for the duo… but it was also a means to an end: their real hope, according to author Scott Von Doviak’s Stephen King Films FAQ, was to garner enough industry clout so that they could have proper financial resources and creative control to make a movie based on his pandemic epic The Stand.

If you know your King history, you know that things didn’t work out as planned. It’s not that Creepshow wasn’t a success (nearly quadrupling its budget at the box office), but the author was never able to crack a proper way to adapt the novel. Making trims and cuts didn’t work out as hoped, and decades before Andy Muschietti’s IT and Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, he even attempted a duology approach. It wasn’t until King saw director Tommy Lee Wallace’s IT in 1990 that he recognized the potential in approaching the story as a network miniseries, and a medium change was initiated (with Mick Garris ultimately taking the helm instead of George A. Romero).

But did the blend of Stephen King’s failure to make a feature and his successful job making a miniseries dissuade Hollywood from killing the dream of a Stand movie? Hell no. Ben Affleck, Scott Cooper, and David Yates share a bond in that they are all filmmakers who were attached to an incarnation that never made it out of development, and Josh Boone even ended up navigating the same route as King: he first became attached to direct a film in February 2014, and the project pivoted to the small screen a little less than a year-and-a-half later (first it was going to be on cable, and then it ended up being one of the first CBS All Access originals in late 2020).

Even putting aside the fact that we are less than a decade removed from that miniseries, I can’t fathom any reason why anyone thinks at this point in cinema history why a movie based on Stephen King’s The Stand is necessary – and more importantly, I don’t think it’s actually possible.

The principal issue is that the Stephen King novel is defined by its spellbinding scope – and while there are many things that are magical about film as a storytelling medium, one of its great hindrances is its limited narrative real estate. It’s true that movies are now longer on average than they’ve ever been before, but it’s still rare for a wide release to eclipse 180 minutes. A proper feature version of The Stand would need all that time and much, much more.

We’re talking about a novel that not only depicts a plague that wipes out the vast majority of humanity, but features a dozen or so protagonists and antagonists– following the characters on treks across the United States in preparation for a showdown between the forces of Good and the forces of Evil. Without wholly changing the story (and if they do that, what’s the point of calling it an adaptation?), the only option that filmmakers have at their disposal in trimming the material is cutting and combining characters… but those creative decisions are far from easy, as all of the main players have key roles to play, and their arcs are intertwined. If it’s not following the full journeys of Abagail Freemantle, Stu Redman, Frannie Goldsmith, Nick Andros, Tom Cullen, Nadine Cross, Glen Bateman, Larry Underwood, Harold Lauder, Lloyd Henreid, The Trashcan Man and, of course, Randall Flagg, it’s not The Stand.

The good news? I am firmly of the belief that this will end in a pleasant intersection of “shouldn’t happen” and “won’t happen.” I think most Stephen King fans would agree that we have not yet seen a perfect adaptation of the book, but if that perfect adaptation is made one day, it won’t be a solitary feature; it will be a limited series that takes the exact approach that Mike Flanagan is taking with The Dark Tower: just do the book. This new development with Doug Liman may eventually evolve into that, but in lieu of that transpiring, I await the day that headlines arrive saying that this feature effort is not happening.

Stephen King’s Picks For The 10 Best Movies Of The 21st Century And How To Watch Them

What are the best movies of the 21^st century so far? That’s an exceptionally tough question, both because 25 years is a long time and because there have been many phenomenal films released during that time. I would personally be hard pressed to provide my own list without viewing it as a fluid list… but the good news is that you’re not here to read my list! You’re here to check out Stephen King’s opinion.

The New York Times has published a sprawling feature taking a look back at the last quarter century of movies and highlighting the titles that are the best of the best, and part of the effort includes contributions from a variety of filmmakers, actors and creatives who created their own personal Top 10s. On the list of folks who participated is the great Stephen King. The lists are in alphabetical order instead of being ranked, but you can scope out his picks (and learn about where you can watch them) below.

Black Hawk Down

Directed by Ridley Scott, the film tells the true story of a Black Hawk helicopter being shot down behind enemy lines during the Battle of Mogadishu in 1992. It’s currently available to stream with a Netflix subscription.

Brokeback Mountain

Celebrating its 20^th anniversary this year, director Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain is based on the short story by Annie Proux and follows a pair of American cowboys (Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal) who carry on a secret affair. Those with an Amazon Prime Video subscription can watch it with a few clicks.

Children Of Men

Children Of Men, the acclaimed film from director Alfonso Cuaron, is set in a future where women have stopped having children and an activist (Clive Owen) finds himself working to protect the last pregnant woman on the planet. The movie isn’t currently streaming, but it is available for digital rental and purchase from all major online outlets.

Million Dollar Baby

Clint Eastwood’s Oscar drama won Hilary Swank her second Academy Award – the actress playing a female boxer who rises to prominence before a tragic accident preemptively ends her career. While not currently in any streaming libraries, it is widely available for digital rental and purchase.

No Country For Old Men

One of three winners of the Academy Awards’ Best Picture prize on this list, No Country For Old Men is Joel and Ethan Coen’s adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy book of the same name – centering on a hunter (Josh Brolin) who finds a satchel of drug money and finds himself hunted by a deadly assassin (Javier Bardem). You could be watching the movie right this instant if you have a Paramount+ subscription.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

One of two Coen brothers movies on Stephen King’s list (the only filmmakers represented twice), O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a delightful spin on Homer’s The Odyssey, following a trio of hapless fugitives (George Clooney, Tim Blake Nelson, and John Turturro) as they go on an epic journey for fortune, freedom, and redemption. It’s not streaming, but it is currently available for rental and purchase online

Oppenheimer

In case you’ve forgotten in the time since the craze of Barbenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Oscar winner Cillian Murphy) and his effort to try and beat the Nazis in a race to create the world’s first atomic bomb. The epic is presently included for Peacock subscribers.

The Departed

The only Martin Scorsese movie to win Best Picture at the Oscars, The Departed is a gangster feature set in Boston that follows the journey of an undercover cop (Leonardo DiCaprio) investigating the Irish mafia while a mole for the criminal organization (Matt Damon) infiltrates the Massachusetts State Police. It’s not streaming, but digital rental and purchase options are plentiful.

The Rule Of Jenny Pen

You didn’t really expect Stephen King’s list of the 10 best 21^st century films to not include any horror, did you? Now available with a Shudder subscription, James Ashcroft’s The Rule Of Jenny Pen stars Geoffrey Rush as a judge who is forced to live in a rest home following a stroke and finds himself tortured by a power-tripping fellow resident (John Lithgow).

Train To Busan

A second horror title to finish the list – and a selection from outside Hollywood. Yeon Sang-ho’s Train To Busan is a South Korean zombie movie that sees passengers on a high speed rail try to survive as the titular city is overrun by the undead. It’s presently available to stream on Netflix.

If you need a recommendation of something to watch this weekend, that’s not a bad list to work from!

That wraps up this edition of The King Beat, but there is never a dull week that goes by in the world of Stephen King, and I’ll be back here on CinemaBlend next Thursday with perspective on all of the big news, and developments. In the meantime, you can learn all about the long history of King adaptations with my series Adapting Stephen King, or make efforts to spiff up your personal King library with my guide on how to build the ultimate Stephen King collection.

Directors have been trying and failing for many, many years to make a movie based on Stephen King's The Stand. Back in the 1980s, King and George A. Romero actually made their anthology film Creepshow as a means of getting enough clout to adapt the pandemic epic as a feature... but that strategy didn't pan out as hoped. The book has been adapted twice as miniseries, but the list of filmmakers who tried and failed to turn the story into a blockbuster includes Ben Affleck, Scott Cooper, David Yates, and Josh Boone.

It's very clearly a tough mountain to climb... but that's not stopping director Doug Liman from attempting the hike.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount Pictures is ignoring the fact that the last miniseries adaptation of The Stand was released just five years ago, as the studio has tapped the director of The Bourne Identity and Edge Of Tomorrow to try and make the first movie based on the Stephen King novel. The trade says that screenwriters have not yet been hired for the gig, but there is expectation that there will be a lot of pitches proffered.

Paramount appears to be investing in the pop culture stalwart that is Stephen King. The studio is also behind the upcoming King movie The Running Man, directed by Edgar Wright and starring Glen Powell and Josh Brolin.

What's perhaps most shocking about this news is that there is confirmation that this effort will apparently not result in an epic two-parter. While that strategy proved successful when director Andy Muschietti brought IT to the big screen for the first time (following the beloved 1990 miniseries starring Tim Curry), sources say that there is a vision in play to make just a single film. This was the same strategy that was taken for Gary Dauberman's Salem's Lot after that book proved terrifically difficult to adapt as anything other than a miniseries (and like The Stand, it had been twice previously adapted for that medium).

Exactly how Doug Liman will accomplish this mission is a significant mystery, as there is simply far too much story in the sprawling epic to fit neatly into two hours (three at most). The most recent adaptation, the 2020 miniseries produced for Paramount+ nee CBS All Access, is eight-and-a-half hours long (including credits) and even it makes significant cuts in bringing Stephen King's work to life. I'm not wholly sure it can be done without gutting the source material and severely limiting the scope... and if that's going to happen, what's the point of making the film?

Time will tell if the Stand movie actually gets made (if I'm being totally honest, my bet would be that it doesn't), but in the meantime, you can stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for all of the biggest updates about the project. And for a weekly rundown of all the biggest news out of the world of Stephen King, check out my column The King Beat, which runs here on CinemaBlend every Thursday.

One doesn’t have to look far back into history to discover evidence of a Stephen King novel being uncomfortably squeezed into a standard-length feature film. As I noted in my CinemaBlend review, Gary Dauberman’s Salem’s Lot does an effective job with King’s story and characters, but it suffers from lacking the source material’s scope. It’s often been the case that miniseries are much better fits for the author’s expansive narratives – which was why I was very happy to learn the latest news about the adaptation of Fairy Tale: after initially being developed as a movie, it’s now moving to the small screen.

That’s just the lead story of this week’s edition of The King Beat – which is so jam packed with news that I don’t have room to fully discuss the surprisingly funny trailer for Osgood Perkins’ The Monkey that dropped on Tuesday. In addition to the news about Fairy Tale, there are casting updates for both Edgar Wright’s remake of The Running Man and MGM+’s The Institute, and we now know when we’ll get to read the upcoming anthology with short stories set in the world of The Stand. There’s a lot to go over, so let’s dig in!

A24 Is Getting Into The Stephen King Game Developing Fairy Tale As A TV Series

It took practically no time at all for an adaptation of Stephen King’s Fairy Tale to enter development. The novel first arrived in stores in September 2022, and it was less than a month later that the news broke of writer/director Paul Greengrass developing it as a feature. Since then, little has been reported about its progress, but that changed in a big way this week, as the project has pivoted and is becoming a 10-part miniseries.

According to Deadline, Fairy Tale has changed studios, but Paul Greengrass is still attached as a key creative. According to the trade, it was deemed “impossible” for the source material to be packed into a feature, and Universal let the project go (they had initially acquired the project in what was described at the time as a “heated auction”). A24 is now backing the miniseries – the studio’s first Stephen King-related project – and Greengrass is teaming up with Fringe and Almost Human writer J.H. Wyman to expand Greengrass’ film script (Wyman will take the reins as showrunner).

There is expectation that the Bourne franchise/Captain Phillips filmmaker will be contributing to Fairy Tale as a director as well, but deals have reportedly not yet been completed.

The fantasy novel is about Charlie Reade, a teenager living in Illinois who ends up saving the life of his elderly neighbor one day while out for a walk and hearing a dog’s distressed barking. He ends up taking care of the pet while the old man, Howard Bowditch, is in the hospital, and he becomes Howard’s caretaker after he’s discharged. During their time together, Charlie begins to make some strange discoveries about his new curmudgeonly friend, and it ultimately leads him to discovering a fantastical alternate world.

As much as I love to see new Stephen King movies on the big screen, I love that this medium switch is happening, as it’s clearly what’s best for the source material. A significant part of what’s great about the novel is the genre change that it executes only after earning it. Before it becomes a full-on fantasy story, it begins as a coming-of-age tale about a boy grappling with higher powers in the universe after he makes a prayer that his widower father stop drinking. This character development, and the creation of a bond between Charlie, Howard, and Howard’s dog, Radar, is all essential, and one can imagine it being cut and hollowed out to be a 30-minute first act of a film that puts a much heavier focus on the alternate universe the protagonist discovers.

With five times the narrative real estate provided by the miniseries medium, Fairy Tale can treat this part of the story with the attention it deserves before providing audiences with a fantastical adventure full of wild oddities, magic, and evil monsters.

On a side note, I’m also thrilled to see A24 – one of the most respected indie studios of the moment – getting into the Stephen King game. This news comes in the same year in which Neon has become attached to two upcoming King movies (the aforementioned The Monkey and Mike Flanagan’s The Life Of Chuck), and because of established genre reputations, it’s exciting to see distribution diversification beyond the major studios and streamers.

The only bit of bad news here is that the trade report doesn’t mention the speed of Fairy Tale’s development and when it might be targeting a start of production – but as more is reported about the project, you can be sure to find updates here on CinemaBlend.

Both The Running Man And The Institute Have Added To Their Casts

Before the end of 2024, two more Stephen King adaptations are scheduled to start filming, and they’ve both been active in recent weeks building their respective casts. On the movie side, there’s Edgar Wright’s remake of The Running Man, and on Team Small Screen is the upcoming series based on The Institute. In the last couple of days, both have seen their ensembles grow.

Per a report from Deadline, Karl Glusman has become the latest actor to join the cast of The Running Man, which is set to hone much closer to its dystopian science-fiction source material than the 1987 action film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Glusman’s standout credits include two collaborations with writer/director Alex Garland (the TV series Devs and 2024’s Civil War) and he recently starred alongside Austin Butler, Jodie Comer and Tom Hardy in Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders. Sadly, we don’t know what role he’ll be playing in the new Edgar Wright movie, which already has Glen Powell, Katy O’Brian and Daniel Ezra in its cast.

The Running Man is being produced by Paramount Pictures and will be in theaters November 21, 2025.

Sadly, we don’t know exactly when MGM+ is planning to start debuting episodes of The Institute, but the developing show has rounded out its cast with three new additions. Created by director/executive producer Jack Bender and writer/executive producer Benjamin Cavell, the series is set to be based on the 2019 Stephen King novel, and the casting department has been busy in recent months. It was first reported in June that Mary Louise-Parker and Ben Barnes would play key roles, and the ensemble has been growing ever since.

This week, it was revealed that the eight-episode series has added Brendan Beiser as a regular and Mary Walsh and Jordan Alexander in recurring roles. All three will be playing characters who exist outside the titular Institute – which is a facility that houses and experiments on kidnapped children who are believed to have telekinetic or telepathic abilities. Young actor Joe Freeman has landed the role of protagonist Luke Ellis, and as previously reported in The King Beat, he is joined in the series by Fionn Laird (Under the Banner of Heaven), Hannah Galway (Under the Banner of Heaven), Julian Richings (Beau Is Afraid), Robert Joy (Julia), Viggo Hanvelt (Our Christmas Mural), Arlen So (Something Rotten), Birva Pandya (The Umbrella Academy), Dan Beirne (Ginny & Georgia), Martin Roach (Suits) and Jane Luk (Streams Flow From A River).

Filming of The Institute will commence in Nova Scotia before the end of the year.

The End Of The World As We Know It: New Tales Of Stephen King’s The Stand Is Now Available For Pre-Order

It was right around this time last year that Constant Readers everywhere first learned about a very cool Stephen King-related literary project that was in the works. With approval and support from King, writer/editors Brian Keene and Christopher Golden have been working hard to put together The End Of The World As We Know It: Tales Of Stephen King's The Stand – which, as its title suggests, is an anthology of stories set within the world of The Stand. A few details about the project have leaked out since then (like the fact that it will include stories set outside of the United States), but we got perhaps the most important pre-release news of all this week: a release date.

The short story collection, which will include an introduction written by Stephen King, is set to be published by Simon & Schuster, and it will be heading to stores on August 19, 2025. Both hardcover and eBook options are now available for pre-order from outlets including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million and Bookshop.org.

The full list of contributors to The End Of The World As We Know It: Tales Of Stephen King's The Stand has not yet been revealed, but it includes a number of talented and popular writers including Paul Tremblay, Josh Malerman, Richard Chizmar, Bev Vincent, S.A. Cosby, Tananarive Due, Robert Cargill, Alex Segura, and Wayne Brady.

That wraps up this week’s edition of The King Beat, but I’ll be back with all the latest news from the world of Stephen King next Thursday here on CinemaBlend.

I have a rich new edition of The King Beat to serve up this week. Among the recent Stephen King-related news, Glen Powell discussed his work on the upcoming adaptation of The Running Man, and the underappreciated anthology series Nightmares & Dreamscapes celebrated its 18th anniversary, but those are not the only events from the past few days to emerge from the world of Stephen King. 

In addition to Danny Lloyd setting the record straight regarding his experiences on the set of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, there is also news of a new documentary about the film that is set to premiere later this month. But that’s not all, as those working to build the Ultimate Stephen King collection will also be excited to learn about a new special edition of Mick Garris’ The Stand that has been announced in coordination with the miniseries’ 30th anniversary. Let’s dig in!

Danny Lloyd Explains How Protected He Was From The Horror On The Set Of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining

This might be hard to believe, but not every behind-the-scenes story about Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is true. For example, Robin Williams was never among the actors considered to play Jack Torrance, and it’s extremely unlikely that the film was Kubrick confessing to staging the Apollo 11 moon landing. That being said, some of the legends about the modern classic are actually factual – including that Kubrick and the production made efforts to shield child actor Danny Lloyd from any scary material on set.

Lloyd was only five years old when he traveled with his family to London so that he could play Danny Torrance in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, and while his memory from that time isn’t perfect, he knows in retrospect that he was “protected” from the shocking elements of the movie. The former child actor (he’s now a biology teacher) is featured on this week’s episode of Fangoria’s The Kingcast (guest co-hosted by Doctor Sleep writer/director Mike Flanagan), and he is specifically asked by Eric Vespe about the rumor that he was kept unaware he was making a “scary movie” during production. Lloyd responded in the affirmative, saying,

Watching The Shining closely, fans will notice that Danny Lloyd isn’t featured in any shots with bloody carnage or the ghosts of The Overlook Hotel. It’s not hard to assume that was very intentional – but Lloyd also emphasized a general lack of awareness of the genre when he was a young kid:

As Eric Vespe and Mike Flanagan pointed out, being part of a scary movie did ultimately influence Danny Lloyd’s performance. After all, some of the most memorable shots of The Shining feature the young actor looking straight down the lens of the camera with a look of pure terror struck across his face. Lloyd agreed and laughed, saying,

In addition to discussing his awareness of the horror in The Shining, Danny Lloyd also tells The Kingcast about the fascinating audition process for the film, his personal relationship with the books of Stephen King, his time with Jack Nicholson on set, and more. He provides some wonderful, unique insight into the movie, and I highly recommend giving the full podcast episode a listen.

A Surprise Documentary About The Shining Will Be Release On July 26

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is a fascinating film. It’s a work that has inspired a tremendous amount of study, resulting in articles, essays, books, documentaries and more, but there are seemingly endless angles on the movie, and they are all interesting. Those who love the Stephen King adaptation can already enjoy Lee Unkrich and J.W. Rinzler’s Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and director Rodney Ascher’s Room 237, but soon there will be another exploration to enjoy, as a brand new doc is set to be released later this month by the official Stanley Kubrick YouTube channel.

According to Indiewire, a documentary titled Shine On – The Forgotten ‘Shining’ Location is going to premiere on YouTube at 11 a.m. PST/2 p.m. EST next Friday, July 26 (which happens to be Stanley Kubrick’s birthday). The work features narration from actor Michael Sheen and is specifically about the location scouting and art direction that went into creating the iconic Overlook Hotel for the big screen.

In the making of the documentary, director/producer Paul King successfully discovered sets from The Shining at Elstree Studios in London, and the film explores the various influences and decisions that went into the creation of The Overlook. In a press statement, King says,

The first trailer for Shine On – The Forgotten ‘Shining’ Location will premiere Friday, July 19, to provide Shining fans with a first look at the documentary.

The Stand Miniseries’ 30th Anniversary Is Being Celebrated With A New Steelbook

As a physical media collector, I’m a big fan of Steelbooks. In addition to being durable and simply different than the standard plastic cases that most movies come in, they transcend media format changes (namely Blu-ray to 4K UHD) and often feature unique art that’s not available in any other home video release. Suffice it to say, I own the Steelbook for every Stephen King adaptation that has been produced in the format, and I’m stoked to soon add Mick Garris’ The Stand to my shelf as well.

Blu-ray.com has the news that Paramount Home Media Distribution is planning to release a special Steelbook for The Stand to celebrate the miniseries’ 30th anniversary (the four-part show aired between May 8-12, 1994). The artwork on the front of the case depicts the journey that Stu, Larry, Glen, and Ralph take to Las Vegas in the third act of the film, while the back has a crow sitting atop a skull with a lightning strike behind in. The interior art includes the tagline “The End Of The World Is Just The Beginning” on one side and a shadowy, demonic depiction of Randall Flagg on the other.

I’m personally excited to add this new collectable to my collection, as an upgrade, but those who plan on purchasing it should know that the Blu-ray disc that’s included is the same one that was released in standard packaging back in 2019. So if you already own The Stand miniseries in HD and don’t feel the need to make this new purchase for the Steelbook alone, it’s understandable. This is the third Stephen King miniseries to be released in the format, the other two being Tobe Hooper’s Salem’s Lot and Tommy Lee Wallace’s IT.

The Stand Steelbook won’t be a wide release, as the plan instead is for it to be sold as a Walmart exclusive. Pre-orders aren’t yet possible, but it has been announced that it will be in stores on September 24.

Recommendation Of The Week: "On Slide Inn Road"

If you ever get the suspicion that you might be living in a Stephen King story, allow me to recommend never going on any kind of a road trip. From “Children Of The Corn” to Desperation to “You Know They Got a Hell of a Band,” things rarely go well for King characters who decide to travel long distances via car. It’s a part of King’s literary legacy – and he most recently added to it with “On Slide Inn Road.”

The short story was first published in Esquire back in October 2020, but it’s now included as one of the 12 tales of terror in You Like It Darker. The road trip narrative finds the Browns – a mother, father, two kids, and a grandfather – on their way to Derry, Maine to visit a dying relative. While attempting to take a shortcut via an abandoned street called Slide Inn Road, they first get forced to turn around due to a washout, and then the car gets trapped in a ditch. It’s bad enough that the family is stranded, but things get far, far worse when they encounter a pair of strangers with horrible intentions.

That brings this week’s edition of The King Beat to a close, but I’ll be back next Thursday here on CinemaBlend with another roundup of all of the news from the world of Stephen King. And instead of counting down the days, you can explore my Adapting Stephen King series, chronicling the full history of King adaptations in film and television.

Like every week since I started this column last August, there are a number of Stephen King-related stories to highlight for a King Beat news roundup, but I first want to address a terrific loss in the Stephen King fan community. It was reported last Friday that Scott Wampler, co-host of the podcast The Kingcast, had passed away. In addition to knowing him as passionate Constant Reader, I had the pleasure of knowing him as a smart and exceptionally funny colleague as an entertainment reporter. Anyone who met him will never forget him – and if you’re a King fan who is not a Kingcast listener, you are doing yourself an extreme disservice.

Every episode of the show is available to listen to on Fangoria, and you can read on for a cool update about The End Of The World As We Know It: Tales Of Stephen King's The Stand, new movie recommendations from Stephen King, and a 10th anniversary look-back at the book that ushered in the contemporary era of King novels.

The New Anthology Set In The World Of The Stand Features Multiple Stories Set Outside The United States

The scope of Stephen King’s The Stand is absolutely massive, tracking characters from Texas, New York, Maine, Arkansas and more across the country to new homes in Nebraska, Colorado, and Nevada… but like the majority of King fiction, the principal narrative doesn’t expand beyond the borders of the United States. The virus known as Captain Trips is described in the novel as the instigator of a global pandemic, but the book doesn’t provide insight to what’s going on in the rest of the world.

That will change with the release of the upcoming tome The End Of The World As We Know It: Tales Of Stephen King's The Stand.

As I noted a few weeks ago in an edition of The King Beat, editors Brian Keene and Christopher Golden have completed work on the collection of short stories set in the world of Stephen King’s The Stand, and now that it’s done, it’s in the hands of The King of Horror himself. King has been reading the book in recent days – as indicated via social media posts – and it’s via his public discussion of the omnibus that we now know that entries will feature settings outside of North America.

The Losers’ Club Podcast replied to a Stephen King message on Monday asking if there are any stories in The End Of The World As We Know It that “take place overseas,” and while his first reaction was “Not so far,” he provided an update on Wednesday revealing that a contribution from Tim Lebbon is set in space:

Tim Lebbon isn’t the first writer to tackle the perspective of astronauts who are in orbit amid apocalyptic events (Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra’s comic Y The Last Man and the TV series The Last Man On Earth spring to mind as other examples), but it will be exciting to see how it’s approached in the world of The Stand.

And that’s not all! Bev Vincent, who also has a story featured in the book, posted his own response to The Losers’ Club’s question and noted that an entry from Usman T. Malik takes place in Pakistan.

That brings the count to two of the entries being set outside of the United States… and we’ll just have to wait and see if King reports on more as he keeps making his way through the book (per Brian Keene’s website, The End Of The World As We Know It is a tome as big as The Stand, and King said he was only a third of the way through it on Monday). Gallery Books is set to publish the collection, but a release date has not yet been announced.

UPDATE: Brian Keene reached out to me via Twitter to confirm that there are "several" stories in The End Of The World As We Know It that take place outside the continental United States. He also teases that a couple "may go even beyond those realms."

Stephen King Shares Love For Both In A Violent Nature And Godzilla Minus One

Need something to read? Stephen King has you covered. Even if you have already finished all of the stories in You Like It Darker, I’m willing to bet that the majority of people reading this column have not read every single one of the author’s dozens upon dozens of books.

Are you looking for something to watch? Stephen King has you covered on that front too. He frequently uses social media to highlight films and shows that he has recently enjoyed, and in the past week, he has recommended both the new slasher film In A Violent Nature and the Academy Award-winning Godzilla Minus One.

In A Violent Nature has been the recipient of a lot of buzz since its theatrical release at the end of last week, and Stephen King joined the chorus singing the film’s praises with a post on Twitter this past Monday. The movie is currently playing in over 1,400 cinemas nationwide, and if you’re an individual who considers yourself a slasher fan, King suggests that you should buy the ticket and take the ride. He wrote,

The film is a high-concept slasher – a supernatural killer comes back from the dead slaughtering anyone who comes between him and his stolen locket – and while the idea of a killer that looks like a Minion may sound too silly to be scary, the general reaction seems to disagree. In A Violent Nature is so gnarly that even writer/director Chris Nash doesn’t know precisely why the movie had to go into theaters without an MPA rating.

If you’re wondering if In A Violent Nature is up your alley, you can watch the official trailer below and check out the official website to see where it’s playing in a theater near you:

As for Godzilla Minus One, that movie has earned acclaim from just about everyone who has seen it (scope out the matching 98 percent critics and audiences scores on Rotten Tomatoes), but it has only now officially gotten the stamp of approval from Stephen King. The fact that the blockbuster is now available to stream for Netflix subscribers has people talking about it again in the wake of its Oscar win a few months ago, and King made his thoughts about it known via a two-word Retweet of fellow author Linwood Barclay:

While the standard version of Godzilla Minus One is now streaming on Netflix, the service will also soon include the Black-And-White version that played in theaters for a limited time earlier this year.

Mr. Mercedes Turned 10 Years Old, The Book Is Remembered For Marking A New Era In The Stephen King Canon

Stephen King will forever be remembered for his contributions to horror literature, but in the last decade, a different genre has risen to prominence in his body of work. He’s still telling stories that thrill and scare, but he also keeps making return trips to the world of detective fiction – most notably telling tales about the wonderful Ohio-based private investigator Holly Gibney. Holly has been on her own in recent years, featured as a principal character in 2018’s The Outsider, the 2020 novella “If It Bleeds” and 2023’s Holly, but her journey began with the Bill Hodges trilogy and specifically 2014’s Mr. Mercedes – which was released 10 years ago this week.

The book wasn’t King’s first novel in the genre, as that would be 2001’s Black House (co-written with the late Peter Straub), but it is his first novel in the genre that keeps both feet firmly planted in reality. It’s more Alfred Hitchcock than Agatha Christie in that it balances perspectives of detective and killer rather than being constructed as a whodunit, but it nonetheless builds suspense as retired police detective Bill Hodges continues his hunt for Mr. Mercedes – a killer who used a stolen Mercedes-Benz to drive through a crowd of innocent people awaiting the start of a job fair.

Holly Gibney becomes a close friend of Bill Hodges’ in Mr. Mercedes, and they become business partners after founding a detective agency in the 2015 sequel Finders Keepers. Their time together ends in 2016’s End Of Watch (I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t read it), and things take a big turn toward the supernatural in the plot – but the canon has since returned to its more grounded roots with 2023’s Holly.

Not only is Mr. Mercedes a great book that denotes the start of a new era in Stephen King’s work, but it also inspired one of the best King TV adaptations of all time. The Audience series Mr. Mercedes, starring Brendan Gleeson, Justine Lupe and Harry Treadaway, ran for three seasons and adapted all three books in the Bill Hodges Trilogy (albeit not in order). You can watch every episode with a Peacock subscription and join fans in hoping that producer Jack Bender can find a home for his Holly series and resurrect the canon.

Recommendation Of The Week: “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream”

Barring unforeseen circumstances, you can expect me to be using this “Recommendation Of The Week” space to highlight stories from You Like It Darker for at least the next month. In my last three columns, I’ve suggested checking out “Laurie,” “Two Talented Bastids,” and “The Dreamers,” and this week I wish to laud “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream.”

Linking back to my comments about Mr. Mercedes, the novella is a crime story that happens to hinge on a supernatural event. The eponymous Danny Coughlin is a mild mannered high school custodian living in Kansas who is haunted by a psychic nightmare that leads him to the location of a murdered young woman. He feels obligated to tell the police about the body, but doing so also makes him the number one suspect, and all he has to defend himself is the incredible truth.

This edition of The King Beat is done, but I’ll be back with a new column next Thursday here on CinemaBlend. Meanwhile you can read about all of the Stephen King adaptations that are presently in the works (and there are a whole lot of them) with our Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV guide.

Be excited, Constant Readers! In less than a week, Stephen King’s You Like It Darker will be arriving in stores everywhere, and fans will be able to devour 12 fresh tales of terror from the genre master. Before we get ahead of ourselves, however, there is plenty to discuss from the world of King that has unfolded in the last seven days, and The King Beat is here to catch you up!

In this week’s column, we have an exciting update about the upcoming The Stand-centric collection The End Of The World As We Know It, and Gerald’s Game/The Life Of Chuck’s Kate Siegel has shared an unexpected choice as her favorite Stephen King novel – but first, I want to discuss the recent renewal of 3 Body Problem on Netflix and how a similar deal from another streamer or studio would be a dream for Mike Flanagan’s developing adaptation of The Dark Tower series.

3 Body Problem Just Got A Seemingly Open Ended Deal From Netflix To Complete Its Story, And I Very Much Want That For The Dark Tower

When Netflix announced yesterday that they were renewing the sci-fi series 3 Body Problem, the news arrived with some interesting language. The press release didn’t say that the show was getting one more season or two more seasons or eight more seasons; instead, it merely said that the series “will continue with all-new episodes to take viewers through the full journey of this epic saga.” Within reason, there is the suggestion that the streamer is dedicated to keeping 3 Body Problem going as long as it takes for filmmakers David Benioff, D.B. Weiss and Alexander Woo to properly finish adapting the Remembrance Of Earth's Past trilogy by author Liu Cixin (of which The Three-Body Problem is the first book).

Despite the recommendation that Stephen King offered last week, I haven’t yet had the opportunity to watch 3 Body Problem – but the news piqued my interest for two reasons. The first is the realization that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss theoretically won’t be in a position to rush the ending of the sci-fi series as they did with Game Of Thrones. The second is that the deal from the streamer is exactly what I want to see Mike Flanagan get in the development of his Dark Tower adaptation.

It comes down to a single word: commitment. At this point, Constant Readers would probably feel fortunate to simply get a single season of a Mike Flanagan-scripted/directed TV series that is exceptionally faithful to its source material (theoretically bringing to life The Gunslinger and some if not all of The Drawing Of The Three)… but it would be awful to then see the adaptation of the western/fantasy/sci-fi epic end there via cancelation. After all, those two books in the grand scheme don’t even have all of the protagonists joining forces on the quest for the Dark Tower (that doesn’t happen until The Wastelands).

Anything short of adapting all seven main novels in the series would feel incomplete, and any proper live-action treatment of Stephen King’s magnum opus is going to need freedom from a streamer/studio to unfold at its own pace – not forcing sacrifices and shortcuts that will dim Flanagan’s vision. Being a realist and someone who has been professionally writing about the entertainment industry for over a decade, I understand that is asking for a whole hell of a lot, but after seeing Netflix’s commitment to 3 Body Problem, I do find myself with a microscopic bit of hope that a similar deal could lead to The Dark Tower adaptation that fans have spent nearly 20 years waiting to see.

The End Of The World As We Know It: New Tales Of Stephen King’s The Stand Has Been Completed, And We’ll Hopefully Get To Read It Soon

This year is stacking up with news about exciting King-related goodies. You Like It Darker is coming out next week, there are three upcoming Stephen King adaptations that have completed production, and before too long, we’ll be getting release date news about The End Of The World As We Know It: New Tales Of Stephen King’s The Stand.

I first wrote about this special new collection back in October when the project was first announced and received the stamp of approval from Stephen King. Edited by Christopher Golden and Brian Keene, the book features contributions from a variety of authors with a story to tell set in the world of The Stand – King’s beloved novel from 1978 about a world ending plague called Captain Trips. The End Of The World As We Know It doesn’t have an official release date yet), but Keene announced on Twitter this week that it is finished:

As noted on Brian Keene’s official website, The End Of The World As We Know It: New Tales Of Stephen King’s The Stand includes stories from a number of notable writers, King buffs and creatives including Paul Tremblay, Richard Chizmar, Bev Vincent, and Wayne Brady. Stay tuned for more updates about this amazing project – which a Q&A on Keene’s site says will be available for Constant Readers at some point in 2025.

Gerald’s Game’s Kate Siegel Names Her Favorite Stephen King Book, And It’s An Unexpected Choice

Rose Madder is a Stephen King book that I would classify as underrated. It’s never been adapted in live action, and King himself has even taken some shots at it – penning in On Writing that it and Insomnia are "stiff, trying-too-hard novels" – but it’s also a story that generates a lot of unsettling and grounded terror to go with splashes of the fantastical. Underrated as it may be, however, every title in the King canon has its supporters, and a notable one in Rose Madder’s case is actor/writer Kate Siegel.

Siegel, who is married to writer/director Mike Flanagan, is a dedicated Constant Reader who will soon be featured in her second Stephen King adaptation (The Life Of Chuck, following her role in Gerald’s Game), and she recently took to her personal Twitter account to answer a fan question about her favorite King book. She name-dropped The Talisman and Black House – two books that the author co-wrote with Peter Straub – but she highlighted Rose Madder as her number one:

A book that pairs quite well with both Gerald’s Game and Dolores Claiborne, Rose Madder tells the story of Rosie Daniels, a woman who one day makes the impetuous decision to up and leave her abusive husband, steal his bank card, and hop on a bus to the Midwest. She is able to start putting together a new life for herself, but her violent, misogynistic ex happens to be a police officer who uses his skills and resources to track her down. Rosie doesn’t have much to defend herself… but she does find herself in possession of a portal to another world after she pawns her wedding ring and acquires a magical portrait of a woman in a rose madder gown.

Reflecting on the book, Kate Siegel could actually do an amazing job playing Rosie Daniels in an adaptation, and given her passion for the material, perhaps it could even be a project she targets as a directorial debut? While she is best known for her work in front of the camera – appearing in just about every Mike Flanagan film and television project in addition to shows like The Time Traveler’s Wife and Hawaii Five-0 – she got her first screenwriting credit co-writing the script for the fantastic 2016 home invasion thriller Hush.

You can watch Kate Siegel discuss her love of Rose Madder and other fantasy-driven Stephen King books in the Twitter video below:

Kate Siegel will theoretically next be seen in the aforementioned adaptation of The Life Of Chuck, which completed production at the end of last year, but the film does not yet have a release date.

Recommendation Of The Week: “Laurie”

If you presently find yourself buzzing with excitement and counting down the minutes until May 21 and the arrival of Stephen King’s You Like It Darker, allow me to offer you some literary methadone to ease your jonesing. Of the 12 stories in the new short story omnibus, five are previously unpublished, two originally came out as e-books, three were featured in magazines/journals, and one was included in a different collection. The twelfth story in that tabulation is “Laurie,” which was first published for free on Stephen King’s personal website in 2018 and still remains available to read.

Lloyd Sunderland, a retiree living in Florida, is the protagonist of the story, and the eponymous Laurie is a Border Collie-Mudi puppy who is gifted to Lloyd by his older sister following the death of his wife. He initially resents having to take care of the animal, but he grows to love the dog after a few months. This new relationship has the effect of returning vigor to his life – but his love of Laurie also pulls him into a dangerous situation that threatens in it.

That wraps up this edition of The King Beat, but I’ll be back next Thursday here on CinemaBlend with a fresh column digging into You Like It Darker and all of the other big headlines from the world of Stephen King. Meanwhile, you can read by series Adapting Stephen King: a chronological examination of every King adaptation made for film and television.

So, is anyone else slowly dying as we wait for the next season of The Last of Us? Because I am. 

As a massive fan of the games who was one of the first to watch The Last of Us on HBO, I knew that the series would receive a Season 2 order, but now that I'm waiting for The Last of Us Season 2, I am slowly losing my mind because I need to see more Joel and Ellie, stat. 

However, plenty of shows have similarities to The Last of Us, whether it be the content, the cast, or more. If you're looking for one, here are 10 great picks to watch while we wait for the second season. 

Chernobyl (2019)

Chernobyl is an award-winning miniseries about exactly what you would expect—the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and the story of what it did to the people there, as well as the aftereffects. 

While Chernobyl isn't a zombie series or dystopian, I have to include it here because of Craig Mazin. For those who don't recall, Mazin is the co-creator of The Last of Us on HBO, and if you're looking for something with a similar vibe and tone, then Chernobyl is the way to go. The miniseries received tons of acclaim, so it's certainly worth watching the five episodes. 

Stream Chernobyl on Max.

The Walking Dead (2010 – 2022)

The Walking Dead is a series based on the comic franchise of the same name. It follows a group of survivors from Atlanta when the zombie apocalypse starts and how they try to stay alive and rebuild their lives afterward. 

I think it's obvious why I would recommend this—both have some sick zombie kills, interesting characters, and plenty of Walking Dead villains to hate. While The Walking Dead's eleven seasons might sound daunting to complete at first, I can assure you it's worth the time. 

As someone who followed the series for many years, all the way up to its emotional finale, this is the show that truly paved the way for zombies to become as huge as they are now – and I'm sure everyone at some point has wanted to be Rick Grimes. 

Stream The Walking Dead on Netflix.

The Mandalorian (2019 – Present)

Oh, you knew this would be on here. The Mandalorian is one of the best Disney+ shows and follows the story of Din Djarin, a lone bounty hunter who has to protect a child who can use the Force. 

This is an easy recommendation for The Last of Us fans – not only does it have the found-family trope as we see in the show, but Pedro Pascal shines in his lead role. It's undoubtedly one of the best Disney+ Star Wars shows. 

Stream The Mandalorian on Disney+.

All Of Us Are Dead (2022 – Present)

All Of Us Are Dead is a South Korean horror series following the lives of students who must survive when a zombie outbreak begins at their school and quickly spreads throughout their town. 

I adored All Of Us Are Dead when it first came out. For The Last of Us fans, the zombies in here are almost creepier than the ones in the show and have some gnarly kills, but you'll end up loving these characters just as much as Joel and Ellie – and yes, I'm still waiting for Season 2. 

Stream All Of Us Are Dead on Netflix.

From (2022 – Present)

From is a lesser-known series on MGM+ that tells the story of a group of survivors trapped in a town who can't get out, while simultaneously having to survive human-eating shapeshifters once night comes around. 

I know that it's not as well-known, but From is legit the scariest show I've seen in years. If you love the thrilling aspect of The Last of Us, you'll really like this. The monsters are scary, the acting is great, and the story is filled with mysteries, all for the fans to unwrap. 

Stream From on MGM+.

The Leftovers (2014 – 2017)

This supernatural TV show from HBO is one that you can't miss. The Leftovers tells the story of the world when suddenly 2% of the Earth's population vanishes. Now, the survivors have to figure out how to live without their loved ones. 

2% doesn't sound like a lot, but 140 million people have disappeared into thin air. If that sounds wild to you, it's because it is. Like The Last of Us, this series is a dystopian show focusing on several different characters, and you'll find yourself easily connecting with them.

Stream The Leftovers on Max.

The Stand (2021)

Based on the Stephen King book of the same name, The Stand is another miniseries that follows the lives of the remaining human population after a lethal strain of influenza caused most others to die. The series focuses on two figures, one that is good and one that is evil, and how all of the survivors butt heads over who they support. 

It's a King adaptation; you know it will be intriguing. If you love The Last of Us, you'll love the dystopian feeling, but stay for the incredible cast and even better story.

Stream The Stand on Paramount+.

The 100 (2014 – 2020)

One of the best CW shows, The 100, is a dystopian series about a group of 100 delinquent teenagers sent down from the sole surviving space station that houses the last of humanity. There, they are forced to go to Earth to see if it's possible to recolonize after a nuclear disaster decades ago. 

As someone who has watched all seven seasons, I think it's an excellent show for those who miss The Last of Us. There's plenty of drama and relationships you'll love, and that survival aspect makes it so thrilling. Plus, there are several excellent character arcs here that are top-tier. 

Stream The 100 on Netflix.

Attack On Titan (2013 – 2023)

As someone who loves anime, I think it would be a sin not to include Attack on Titan. The series follows the supposed remnants of humanity, who live within giant walls to protect themselves from humongous humanoid creatures called Titans that feast on humans. The series centers on Eren Yeager, a young man who aims to kill all Titans. 

That is all I can say without spoiling any of it. When I tell you this show is probably one of the best anime shows there is, I'm not joking. You'll love it if you like The Last of Us because it's all about humans surviving crazy circumstances and the family we make along the way, but the twists in every single arc of Attack on Titan are so phenomenal you'll stay for that. 

Stream Attack on Titan on Crunchyroll.

Game Of Thrones (2011 – 2019)

Last but not least, we have Game of Thrones. The series follows several characters battling for the ultimate title – the ruler of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. 

Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsay had substantial roles in Game of Thrones, and if you love the characters – and how quickly they die – in The Last of Us, this is the show for you. From the incredible Game of Thrones cast to the battle scenes and much more, you'll binge Game of Thrones from beginning to end within a few weeks. 

Stream Game of Thrones on Max.

This makes me want to watch The Last of Us Season 2, and my patience is growing thin, but these shows can hold me over until then. It's time to rewatch Attack on Titan for the millionth time. 

This week, Mike Flanagan’s upcoming adaptation of The Life Of Chuck announced a full cast of excellent stars (many Flanagan veterans and many newcomers), and David Cronenberg’s underrated The Dead Zone celebrated its special 40th anniversary… and yet that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to exciting news from the world of Stephen King. Fortunately, this edition of The King Beat is here to bring you up to speed with everything that’s happening.

From a special spinoff of The Stand being in the works, to writer/director Joe Lynch developing a Stephen King adaptation, to the new release of Cujo on 4K UHD from Kino Lorber, there is a great deal to discuss, so let’s dive in, shall we?

A Stephen King-Approved Collection Of Spinoffs Based On The Stand Is Now In The Works

There is an argument to be made that Stephen King’s The Stand is a living document. The novel was first published in 1978, but King’s preferred version, The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition, was released in 1990, and the author further added to the story in 2020 by writing the teleplay for the finale of the miniseries adaptation that was released on Paramount+. The epic has continued to grow, and that expansion is now set to continue in an intriguing way with The End Of The World As We Know It: Tales Of Stephen King's The Stand.

The new project has been announced on Twitter by writer/editor Brian Keene, who revealed that The End Of The World As We Know It is a large collection of short stories set in the world of The Stand and written by a variety of authors. Some of the names announced for the book include Paul Tremblay, Richard Chizmar, Joe R. Lansdale, Scott Ian, Alma Katsu, Josh Malerman, Wayne Brady and Maurice Broaddus.

The endeavor has been approved by Stephen King, who is not only going to be contributing an introduction to the tome, but voiced his support for the project on Twitter shortly after it was first announced. He wrote,

Whether or not the short stories in The End Of The World As We Know It: Tales Of Stephen King's The Stand will be considered canon will be up to the opinion of every Constant Reader who picks up a copy – but it should be a fascinating read nonetheless. A release date has not yet been announced, but stay tuned for news on that front.

Following His H.P. Lovecraft Movie, Suitable Flesh Director Joe Lynch Is Working To Develop A Stephen King Adaptation

If you’re not already aware of director Joe Lynch’s Suitable Flesh, it’s time to rectify that error. Set to be released on VOD and in limited theaters this weekend, the film is based on the H. P. Lovecraft short story "The Thing On The Doorstep," and with a screenplay by Dennis Paoli and legendary scream queen Barbara Crampton producing and starring, it’s a wonderful sister sequel to director Stuart Gordon’s classic Lovecraft adaptations Re-Animator and From Beyond. Lynch’s love for the source material is apparent on screen – and if the filmmaker has his druthers, he’ll soon be able to express a similar passion for the works of Stephen King.

I interviewed Joe Lynch earlier this month, and while the bulk of our wonderful conversation was about Suitable Flesh (look out for more stories about the movie here on CinemaBlend), the very end of our talk veered into Stephen King territory. I asked if he had intentions to bring a King story to the big screen, and he not only revealed an intense desire to do so, but that it’s something he has discussed with the author himself and is actively working on. Said Lynch,

Continuing, he told me the amazing story about how he first got into Stephen King’s books – and it involved his house being burglarized when he was a child. The thief apparently got away, but they left one item behind that caught the future filmmaker’s eye:

Beginning with a haunting prologue teasing the terrible love triangle the book is about, Christine is certainly a novel that hooks the reader fast – and apparently the hooks that it first got into Joe Lynch have remained there for decades.

The director credits Stephen King as a major inspiration, and apparently we may not have to wait all that long to see his affection for the author expressed on screen:

That’s a remarkable tease, and hopefully we won’t have to wait too long before we learn more about what he’s developing.

Released This Week, Kino Lorber's Cujo 4K UHD Is A Must-Buy For Stephen King Fans

I am certainly an obsessive when it comes to the works of Stephen King and their adaptations, and that’s particularly well-illustrated when it comes to director Lewis Teague’s Cujo (one of the best King movies of all time). On Blu-ray and DVD, the various special features available have been scattered across multiple releases both domestic and foreign, including multiple filmmaker commentary tracks as well as featurettes and documentaries. As a result, I’ve had far too many discs jammed into my Cujo Steelbook for far too long… but Kino Lorber’s amazing new 4K UHD has finally arrived to relieve that stress by being the perfect home video release for the film.

Kino Lorber has previously done brilliant work for Stephen King fans – recently putting out wonderful 4K packages for Misery and Needful Things – but Cujo is their finest product yet for Constant Readers, and it's available in stores and from online retailers now. Including both 4K UHD and Blu-ray discs, the release includes all three existing commentary tracks, the 43-minute documentary Dog Days: The Making of Cujo, a 2014 roundtable interview titled Cujo Revisited, and extensive interviews with star Dee Wallace and more.

Thanks to work from the phenomenal boutique label, which has created a new master from a scan of the original negative, the movie has never looked better on home video. If you’re like me and ever-building the Ultimate Stephen King collection, it’s a must.

Recommendation Of The Week: “Crouch End”

A few weeks ago, I used my Recommendation Of The Week to highlight a story that I think would be a good fit for director Rob Savage, who told me in an interview that he has been discussing a second Stephen King adaptation after The Boogeyman – and this week’s suggestion comes from a similar place. Taking into consideration Joe Lynch’s desire to make a King movie and his fantastic work on Suitable Flesh, I’m highlighting a tale where the works of King and Lovecraft intersect: “Crouch End”.

King originally wrote the short story for 1980’s New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos – a collection of different authors’ tributes to H.P. Lovecraft – and it was eventually collected in the 1993 omnibus Nightmares & Dreamscapes. One of the few titles in the author’s bibliography set outside the United States, “Crouch End” recounts the terrifying journey of an American couple who get desperately lost while traveling in the eponymous district of North London. Searching for the home of the husband’s boss, the protagonists find themselves in a thin spot between our reality and dimension of eldritch horrors.

“Crouch End” was adapted in 2006 for an episode of the TNT anthology series Nightmares And Dreamscapes: From The Stories Of Stephen King, but it doesn’t do full justice to the excellent, frightening source material. Perhaps Joe Lynch could be the one to showcase everything that’s great about it.

That does it for this week’s edition of The King Beat, but I’ll be back next Thursday here on CinemaBlend with a fresh roundup of Stephen King news, and meanwhile, you can learn about the full history of King’s work in film and television with my Adapting Stephen King column.

I love the works of Stephen King and the movies and TV programs that have been inspired by his writing… but I am also a rational person who understands that not every adaptation is great. In fact, some of them are just downright terrible.

We have done rankings of the best Stephen King movies and best Stephen King TV shows/miniseries. This, however, is the opposite of those, and runs down the list of the worst Stephen King adaptations in no particular order. 

Under The Dome

Under The Dome is a sprawling novel that examines how a small town might behave in a mysterious crisis, but everything that is captivating and compelling about the book is thrown out the window by the TV show. The CBS series decided to treat the fascinating work of post-9/11 fiction as a gateway to ripping off the mystery box structure of Lost, and while it develops some energy in its first season, the final two are train wrecks.

Children Of The Corn

Beyond the fact that it has spawned a seemingly endless number of sequels, the most notable thing about Children Of The Corn is that it exists in history as the first bad Stephen King movie. It starts well with a horrifying sequence where the children of Gatlin, Nebraska murder all of their elders, but it gets lifeless after that and evokes none of the terror of King’s short story.

Graveyard Shift

Graveyard Shift gets points for including a wacky turn from Brad Dourif as a freaky exterminator and the gnarly rat/bat monster at the very end… but it also loses points because the former doesn’t end up being killed by the latter. The film drifts far from the source material and delivers little more than hollow characters meeting grim deaths. It’s Kingsploitation.

Sometimes They Come Back

The short story on which Sometimes They Come Back features a killer ending with the protagonist using satanic rituals to vanquish undead bullies tormenting him… but the TV movie adaptation lacks all of the edge of its source material and is a mostly dull experience.

The Tommyknockers

It’s hard to totally blame the miniseries adaptation of The Tommyknockers for being bad. After all, the book on which it’s based is one of Stephen King’s worst. Still, that doesn’t excuse its bizarre and dumb deviations from the novel, including both major cuts and bad alterations to the motives of the aliens.

Dreamcatcher

Dreamcatcher has the handicap of being based on a less-than-stellar Stephen King work… but it doesn’t get to escape this list because it’s still an awful film based on a King book. Like the source material, it starts off well, featuring a group of friends who find a fun outdoor weekend ruined by vicious aliens, but it nosedives as soon as the military shows up and the story starts digging into the extraterrestrial’s invasion.

The Mangler

Like Stephen King, both Tobe Hooper and Robert Englund are undisputed horror genre legends… but the one and only film that brings all three together is a mess. The terrific King short story is at the heart of The Mangler, but the subplot involving Englund’s leg-braced, one-eyed owner of the Blue Ribbon Laundry is a far too schlocky add on, and Ted Levine delivers a dull turn as the film’s protagonist.

Maximum Overdrive

There is a campy quality that can be appreciated in Stephen King’s one and only attempt at directing, but there is far too much that doesn’t work for Maximum Overdrive to get a full pass. There is plenty of ridiculous death and silly carnage, but it’s missing the strong qualities like character development and story that are typically the foundations of King’s work.

Carrie (2002)

The 2002 remake of Carrie gets some credit for attempting a cinematic equivalent of the original book’s epistolary structure, but it has a wrongheaded sympathy for its titular protagonist – partially motivated by the consideration of the TV movie as a backdoor pilot – and it struggles to get out from under the shadow of director Brian De Palma’s classic.

Thinner

While director Tom Holland’s The Langoliers is a movie that can be defended because of its faithfulness to the source material and wild approach to time travel, the filmmaker’s follow-up King adaptation doesn’t get the same treatment. The book has a wryness to its cynicism that makes the material palatable, but Thinner’s adaptation is dry and mean, and its gross stereotypes about the Romani culture hasn’t let it age well.

Trucks

If you thought Maximum Overdrive was bad, just wait until you get a load of Trucks! Based on the same short story as Stephen King’s directorial debut (“Trucks”), the TV contains exactly one entertaining moment – a scene where a toy truck crushes a man’s head in – and it’s not even in the version that originally aired on USA Network because it was too gory for broadcast. There is nothing likable about this lifeless adaptation, and it has a claim for “Worst Stephen King Movie Of All Time.”

Apt Pupil

Anyone would be challenged to make a palatable movie based on the novella “Apt Pupil,” which is as dark as anything Stephen King has ever written, and Bryan Singer certainly didn’t crack the code with his 1998 film. It’s a deeply unpleasant work that also scratches at the surface of the source material and waters it to down to the point of being ineffectual.

The Mist (2017)

Is The Mist TV series meant to be a remake of the Stephen King novella, or a spinoff to Frank Darabont’s film adaptation? That’s never totally clear, and it hampers the work. Following multiple characters traveling to multiple locations, it’s never able to recreate the human-centric paranoia that is so brilliant in the source material, and it fails to do anything interesting with the eponymous supernatural fog and the monsters that dwell within it.

Secret Window

It’s not impossible to make a good movie with a twist involving a protagonist with dissociative identity disorder (Fight Club is pretty damn good, after all), but Secret Window is a mostly rote take on that trope that isn’t elevated much at all by tricky cinematography and a sinister turn from John Turturro.

Riding The Bullet

If you’re looking for some hitchhiking-related Stephen King horror, allow me to steer you toward the anthology TV movie Quicksilver Highway and its adaptation of “Chattery Teeth.” Riding The Bullet is a movie that is all over the place tonally as its protagonist travels to be at his dying mother’s bedside, as it tries to be disgusting and gory in one minute, and serious and solemn in the next. None of it works.

"The Road Virus Heads North" in Nightmares And Dreamscapes

The majority of the episodes in the anthology series Nightmares And Dreamscapes are solid adaptations of Stephen King short stories, but “The Road Virus Heads North” is a standout exception. Its biggest issue is that the plot centers around a “scary painting” that isn’t scary in the slightest, and that lack of terror is ultimately parlayed into violence and death with zero tension or investment.

Desperation

Ron Perlman is a force to be reckoned with as the mad, possessed Collie Entragian in Desperation, and he is surrounded by a talented cast, but the TV movie fails to generate real scares past its first act and once all of the characters come together. The contemplations on the nature of god from the book come across as preachy and heavy-handed.

Children Of The Corn (2009)

Donald P. Borchers’s remake of Children Of The Corn has the distinction of being a much more faithful adaptation of Stephen King’s short story compared to the first feature-length attempt, but “more faithful” doesn’t always mean better. The bickering protagonists are obnoxious and impossible to root for even in the most dire circumstances, and they can’t die fast enough amid the tedium that plays out in the movie’s second and third acts.

Dolan's Cadillac

The short story “Dolan’s Cadillac” is Stephen King’s riff on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” in that it centers on a revenge tale where the antagonist ends up being entombed – but that narrative does not work at all stretched out to feature length for director Jeff Beesley’s 2010 feature. Like some of the worst King movies, it is deeply unpleasant, and nothing is helped by Wes Bentley being miscast and failing to capture the main character’s descent into madness.

Haven

Haven loses points right off the bat for barely having anything to do with the book on which it’s based (The Colorado Kid), but mostly the TV series is a generic monster-of-the-week show with lame season-long arcs. There are a few engaging episodes, but for the most part, the 78 episodes are tepid sci-fi mysteries solved by the three main protagonists (who are locked in an intolerable love triangle).

Carrie (2013)

Factoring in how the 2002 TV remake of Carrie failed to escape the shadow of the original despite a big change in story structure, the 2013 film does even less to try and distance itself from the classic, and it suffers mightily for it. Chloë Grace Moretz is badly miscast in the lead role, and there is simply too much that is overly familiar in this adaptation.

A Good Marriage

A Good Marriage is a film built on a good story foundation – centering on a wife who learns that her husband is leading a double life as a serial killer – but it’s an adaptation that without a pulse. It’s based on the story of Dennis Rader a.k.a. the BTK killer, and while it works hard not to be exploitative by keeping the story centered on the spouse instead of the murderer, we don’t see enough of her inner turmoil as she decides whether she should call the police and risk destroying her family.

Mercy

If you’re looking for a good adaptation of Stephen King’s short story “Gramma,” watch the episode with that name written by Harlan Ellison for the 1980s revival of The Twilight Zone and stay far away from Mercy. The additions made to make the material fit feature length do nothing to add to the personal, intimate terror of the original work, and an inability to create effective atmosphere leaves its horror wholly dependent on lame jump scares.

Big Driver

Big Driver was made as a rape revenge TV movie for the Lifetime network, and it’s exactly what you’d expect from that description. It’s not exploitative, but it is extremely basic and overly familiar, and despite the fact that it is just being faithful to the source material, there are scenes that feel like commercials for TomTom GPS devices.

Cell

Stephen King is responsible for writing a number of great adaptations of his own books, but Cell is his biggest blunder. Just about the entire second half of the book is altered for the worse for the film, the characters don’t possess the depth they need, and much like the original Children Of The Corn, there isn’t anything scary that plays out after the horrifying opening sequence.

The Dark Tower

The Dark Tower is a special kind of bad Stephen King movie in that it’s one of the few that feels like an insult to Stephen King’s Constant Readers. The author’s brilliant, seven-book series is an epic that blends genres and follows complicated, wonderful characters… and the adaptation is a sub-90 minute (without credits) mess that simplifies everything about the source material and doesn’t even bother including a number of main protagonists.

Pet Sematary (2019)

Watching Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer's Pet Sematary, you get the sense that the filmmakers were petrified of being compared to the original 1989 film and felt compelled to make their movie wildly different. This was a huge mistake. Not only is the story less interesting with the death of Ellie Creed instead of Gage Creed, but the movie never delivers the spiraling madness that is featured in the horrifying novel.

The Stand (2020)

For a while, it seemed like the streaming age was Hollywood’s gateway to finally creating a truly great adaptation of The Stand… but that’s not what we got in the 2020 miniseries. It’s a mess structurally – twisting King’s expansive novel into a poorly paced non-linear narrative – and cuts some of the best stuff from the source material, including the journeys of Donald Merwin Elbert a.k.a. The Trashcan Man and Tom Cullen.

Mr. Harrigan's Phone

The novella “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone” is a spooky tale about modern technology and the afterlife, but director John Lee Hancock’s adaptation puts a stronger emphasis on a coming of age tale with a horror bent – and neither totally work. There isn’t much said in the journey of the protagonist, and there is a lacking chemistry between stars Jaeden Martell and Donald Sutherland.

Pet Sematary: Bloodlines

Pet Sematary: Bloodlines is a unique adaptation in that it adapts the work of Stephen King like no other adaptation has – but the end result is only mediocre in its best moments. The story of Timmy Baterman is a compelling one as a chapter in Pet Sematary, but not enough is creatively done to expand upon it, and the film doesn’t do anything particularly interesting to add to the book’s lore.

Hearts In Atlantis

The book on which Hearts In Atlantis is based is a sweet, bleak collection of connected stories with direct links to Stephen King’s phenomenal Dark Tower saga, and little that’s interesting about it is maintained in director Scott Hicks’ adaptation. The performances by Anton Yelchin and Anthony Hopkins are sweet, but the film is a mostly rote coming of age tale.

Bag Of Bones

Bag Of Bones is one of Stephen King’s most beautifully written novels, as the author takes a dip into the world of gothic romance, but everything about the adaptation feels flat – from the tepid depiction of the evil millionaire Max Devore to the May/December flirtation between protagonist Mike Noonan and doomed widow Mattie Devore.

We can always hope that all future Stephen King adaptations will be better than these 32, and you can keep track of all the projects that are currently in development with our Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV guide.

Some of the best movies of all time – including Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Rob Reiner’s Misery – are Stephen King adaptations, but not to be undersold is the author’s legacy on the small screen. Early on, King projects made for the small screen came few and far between, with the author never comfortable with the idea of censorship and commercial breaks interrupting his stories, but everything changed in the 1990s, and now shows, miniseries, and TV movies are considered an important part of King’s pop culture impact.

But of the dozens of projects that have been made, which stand out as the best of the best? This feature is my personal answer to that question. I’ve previously ranked the greatest Stephen King films of all time, but this was a special challenge that forced me to get picky. Kingdom Hospital, The Langoliers, and the 2004 miniseries remake of Salem’s Lot didn’t quite make the cut because there are 10 other titles that beat them out.

10. It (1990)

Original Air Date: November 18, 1990

Tim Curry. If you need any justification for calling the 1990 IT miniseries one of the best small screen Stephen King adaptations, that name alone fits the bill. When the actor was first approached about the project, he was reticent to sign on, as he had his fill of prosthetics and heavy makeup in the making of Ridley Scott’s Legend, but he was convinced to take part, and now his turn as Pennywise The Dancing Clown is regarded as a treasured moment of horror history.

The legacy of the Tommy Lee Wallace-directed IT is tarnished by its conclusion, featuring an underwhelming confrontation with a fake-looking giant spider, but everything before that point is beloved for a reason. Both the kid and adult iterations of The Losers Club are wonderful and well-cast, and it’s impressive how faithful to the book it manages to be given the restrictions and censorship of network television at the time. It’s also an important part of Stephen King adaptation history, as it opened the author’s eyes to the immense potential of TV miniseries, which in turn led to the creation of…

9. The Stand (1994)

Original Air Date: May 8, 1994

Stephen King and George A. Romero spent years unsuccessfully trying to figure out a way to turn the apocalyptic epic The Stand into a movie, but everything changed in the 1990s. King couldn’t sell the idea of adapting the novel as two films (a strategy that would be used decades later for Andy Muschietti’s IT), and there was no way the scope of the story could fit into a single feature – but it was recognized that a miniseries’ runtime real estate would be perfect. Writing the teleplays himself, the author reteamed with director Mick Garris (with whom he worked on 1992’s Sleepwalkers), and what they created for ABC is an impressive achievement for 1990s television.

Budget restraints are apparent in the finished work, but Stephen King does a brilliant job translating the full breadth of the journey from the book, and there are some wonderful and memorable performances, the standouts being Gary Sinise, Bill Fagerbakke, Ruby Dee, and Matt Frewer.

8. The Outsider (2020)

Original Air Date: January 12, 2020

Miniseries were a revelation for Stephen King adaptations around the turn of the century, but the modern golden age of television now allows for whole novels to be made as full seasons of TV shows – and The Outsider is an excellent example of just how great that evolution is. The HBO series premiered just a year-and-a-half after the book that it’s based on was published, and the excitement about the material that speed indicates is apparent in the work. It’s a fantastic and eerie translation of a dark detective story that shows that King very much still has the capacity to horrify.

Developed by Richard Price, The Outsider unfolds as a slow burn mystery at the start – questioning how a child killer could leave excessive amounts of DNA at a crime scene while also having an airtight alibi – but it turns into an intense nail-biter when the protagonists start to realize that what they are dealing with comes from the realm of the supernatural.

Stream The Outsider on Max

7. Castle Rock (2018-2019)

Original Air Date: July 25, 2018

Created by Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason, Hulu’s Castle Rock is a love letter to the works of Stephen King, but that’s not why it’s ranked in this feature. It’s because it’s a love letter that very much understands the vibe and purpose of King’s work, and it uses that understanding to create two thrilling and exciting seasons of television.

If you’re a Stephen King fan, watching Castle Rock is a delightful Easter egg hunt that will see fans smile at references to Jack Torrance and scenes set in the bar known as The Mellow Tiger, but there is also a pair of compelling narratives that play out in each season that most definitely encourage binge watching. The cast is full of Stephen King adaptation veterans who deliver standout performances, including Sissy Spacek, Tim Robbins, and Bill Skarsgård, and by the time you get to the end of Season 2 there is most definitely an intense regret that Season 3 never got made.

Stream Castle Rock on Hulu

6. Lisey's Story (2021)

Original Air Date: June 4, 2021

Given the fact that Stephen King has called Lisey’s Story his favorite novel that he has written, it’s far from surprising that the author took it upon himself to adapt it – and in doing so, he created the best miniseries that he himself has made in his long career. Teaming up with director Pablo Larraín and working with a brilliant cast including Julianne Moore, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Joan Allen, Clive Owen, and Dane DeHaan, the eight episode streaming series for Apple TV+ is a haunting, shocking, and emotional examination of death, mourning, and memory.

While capturing what’s tremendous about the book, Stephen King builds on the text in impressive ways – most notably with enhancements to antagonist Jim Dooley (DeHaan) that make him an even greater terror than he is in the novel. Thanks to Larraín’s work, his collaboration with cinematographer Darius Khondji, and contributions from all departments, Lisey’s Story also has the distinction of being one of the most beautiful King adaptations.

Stream Lisey’s Story On AppleTV+

5. Nightmares & Dreamscapes (2006)

Original Air Date: July 12, 2006

If there’s any Stephen King show that I wish could have gone on indefinitely, it’s Nightmares & Dreamscapes – but alas, the series only lasted for one eight-episode season. It’s sad, because the series demonstrated the remarkable potential in an anthology series solely based on King’s short stories, and produced a number of terrific adaptations.

I think it’s fitting that Nightmares & Dreamscapes occupies the middle spot of this list given that there is definitely a wide range when it comes to quality overall, but when it’s good, it’s great. The episodes based on “Battleground,” “Umney’s Last Case” “Autopsy Room Four” and “The End Of The Whole Mess” are all superlative interpretations of their respective source materials, and are as good or better than what’s in classic feature anthologies including Creepshow and Cat’s Eye.

4. Salem's Lot (1979)

Original Air Date: November 17, 1979

Tobe Hooper’s two-episode miniseries Salem’s Lot was the first Stephen King adaptation made directly for television, but that legacy has less to do with its ranking here than the fact that it holds up surprisingly well. The Nosferatu-take on ancient vampire Kurt Barlow may not be book-accurate, but it is iconic – and that’s in spite of the fact that he only shows up in a few scenes. And the terror hardly stops there, with the visage of Ronnie Scribner’s Ralphie Glick floating in a bedroom window tattooed on the minds of many Constant Readers.

A superb acting ensemble including Bonnie Bedelia, David Soul, James Mason, Kenneth McMillan, and the late Lance Kerwin bring to life Stephen King’s memorable cast of characters from the novel, and despite the limitations of television as a medium in the 1970s, it’s still able to remain faithful to the terror of the book.

3. 11.22.63 (2016)

Original Air Date: February 15, 2016

As indicated by sections above, the streaming era has been great for Stephen King adaptations – both for streaming and features. On the movie side, the best to be made to date by a subscription service is Mike Flanagan’s Gerald’s Game, and when it comes to episodic content, the crown goes to Bridget Carpenter’s 11.22.63 on Hulu.

Those who have read the book will miss the wonderful qualities of the story that make it a tribute to the teaching profession, but the miniseries certainly keeps to the core of the book – which is a gripping tale about time travel and trying to change history by stopping the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It creates marvelous moments of fear and sweetness in its eight episode run covering the full breadth of the novel, and what the show does as far as expanding the role of Bill Turcotte (as portrayed by George MacKay) is one of the best major changes we’ve seen in any modern Stephen King adaptation.

Stream 11.22.63 on Hulu

2. Mr. Mercedes (2017-2019)

Original Air Date: August 9, 2017

Between 2014 and 2016, Stephen King did a head-first dive into the world of detective fiction with the Bill Hodges trilogy: the tale of a retired cop on the hunt for a psychotic mass murderer. One year after it ended, the series got the best possible adaptation that it could have gotten. Developed by David E. Kelley, Mr. Mercedes covered each of the three novels in its three seasons airing on Audience, and while it does end up getting pretty far away from the source material by the end, its fundamental excellence is in its ensemble of characters.

Brendan Gleeson was an inspired and perfect choice for the role of Bill Hodges, and Harry Treadaway is a truly scary sonofabitch as homicidal maniac Brady Hartsfield, but it’s Justine Lupe’s Holly Gibney that makes Mr. Mercedes special. Amazing as Cynthia Erivo is in The Outsider, Lupe’s version is the far more book-accurate interpretation of the character, and it’s simply impossible not to fall for the sweet and strange detective over the course of the show.

Stream Mr. Mercedes on Peacock

1. Storm Of The Century (1999)

Original Air Date: February 14, 1999

The best Stephen King TV project isn’t an adaptation; it’s an original creation. In 1999, the author collaborated with director Craig R. Baxley on Storm Of The Century – a three-episode miniseries written directly for television that aired on ABC – and it is nothing short of phenomenal. As the villainous/demonic André Linoge, Colm Feore plays one of the scariest antagonists that King has ever imagined, and the escalation in the story is genius.

It feels like things are horrible enough when the fictional Little Tall Island gets hit by a dangerous blizzard and Linoge is discovered at the scene of a vicious murder, but things only get worse after the locals take shelter in the town hall and the villain is incarcerated. The magic that Linoge weaves from his jail cell is gruesome and shocking… but that’s nothing compared to the offer he makes to everyone to make him go away. All of it leads to one of the best endings that Stephen King has ever written – which is a big reason why Storm Of The Century sits at #1 in this ranking.

Stream Storm Of The Century on Hulu

This is certainly a mutable ranking and may potentially change as new Stephen King projects arrive on the small screen. To keep track of everything that is in the works in all mediums, check out my Upcoming Stephen King Movies guide. You can also learn about the full history of the author’s history with Hollywood via my Adapting Stephen King series, and head back here to CinemaBlend every Thursday for The King Beat – my weekly roundup of all the big news out of the world of Stephen King.

Even after the success of The Stand miniseries in 1994, Hollywood refused to give up on the dream of turning Stephen King’s apocalyptic epic into a feature film, and it was a little over a decade ago that the effort hit a high gear. In January 2011, it was announced that a partnership had been forged between CBS Films (the owner of the rights to the book) and Warner Bros., and the plan was to develop a blockbuster for the big screen. The news immediately inspired excitement from fans… though there were also plenty of reasons to have reservations given the prior attempts to adapt the book as a feature.

As it turns out, those reservations were justified because the movie had a hell of a time getting off the ground. David Yates – who had success with Warner Bros. making numerous Harry Potter films – was said to be attached in July 2011, but he dropped out a few months later, with reports saying that he felt the source material didn’t have the action sequences or set pieces to make the tentpole blockbuster that the studio wanted. After Yates’ departure, Ben Affleck was the next filmmaker tapped for the gig in October 2011, but he admitted to be struggling with the project a year later, and by August 2013 he was replaced at the helm by Scott Cooper. By November of that year, Cooper was no longer attached, citing creative differences.

It really wasn’t until early 2014 that the project started making moves toward its final form – which wouldn’t end up being a film at all. In February of that year, Josh Boone was tapped as The Stand’s new director, and after talk of possibly making the adaptation as multiple features (with a pre-The Dark Tower Matthew McConaughey rumored to play the villainous Randall Flagg), the adaptation made a key pivot. In June 2015, it was revealed that new plans were in the works that would once again see Stephen King’s book get the live-action treatment on the small screen. By 2016, it fell into a purgatory as a proper home was searched for… but then the streaming wars came along to save it.

With CBS planning the launch of an independent streaming service in 2019 (CBS All Access, which would turn into Paramount+), it was officially announced that The Stand would be developed as part of its early original programming slate. Josh Boone remained attached, collaborating with Justified writer Benjamin Cavell to develop the series, and by June of that year the new miniseries lined up a cast including James Marsden (as Stu Redman), Amber Heard (as Nadine Cross), Whoopi Goldberg (as Mother Abigail Freemantle), Greg Kinnear (as Glen Bateman), Odessa Young (as Fran Goldsmith), Henrique Zaga (as Nick Andros), and Alexander Skarsgård (as Randall Flagg). The pandemic-centric series went into production that September (about a month before the first reports of a COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China), and filming wrapped within a few weeks of the World Health Organization declaring a global emergency.

With freedom from content censorship, prescient timing due to world events, expansive runtime real estate, and a final episode written by Stephen King himself as a coda to his beloved novel, The Stand miniseries premiered with remarkable potential… but does it live up to it? That’s the subject of this week’s Adapting Stephen King.

How Paramount+’s The Stand Differs From Mick Garris’ The Stand

As previously seen with 2019’s Pet Sematary, there’s an extra challenge that comes with developing a remake of a beloved book when the original adaptation was scripted by the author of the source material. In the making of the 1994 The Stand miniseries, Stephen King worked to translate his novel across mediums as faithfully as possible – albeit while dealing with the constraints of a six-hour runtime and content limitations of network television.

That being said, there were still a handful of details and plot developments that couldn’t be included in the teleplay, and the 2020 miniseries smartly took the opportunity to differentiate itself from that original television production by making a point to include a number of them.

In addition to having more graphic content generally such as cursing, bloody violence, and nudity, the remake features a much more book-accurate depiction of dying from the deadly virus Captain Trips, and it’s as disturbing as it should be. The ingredient is the depiction of the symptom that Stephen King describes in the book as “tube neck” – a swelling of the glands that makes a person look like they have an inflatable around their throat. It’s a horrific element from the novel used effectively in the show.

As far as the individual members of the ensemble cast are concerned, the biggest pivot back to the book that the remake makes compared to the original is the inclusion of Rita Blakemoor (Heather Graham), the wealthy socialite whom Larry Underwood (Jovan Adepo) meets at the start of his story when he’s in New York. The 1994 miniseries combines Rita with Nadine as an amalgamation character (played by Laura San Giacomo), but she is brought back into the mix in the 2020 version and has basically the same tragic arc as her on-page counterpart.

The depictions of Fran Goldsmith, Nick Andros, and Randall Flagg  also see details from the book brought back into the mix that weren’t in the 1994 adaptation. Fran is established as being pregnant at the beginning of the story, unlike the previous adaptation, which implies that Stu Redman is the father of her child; Nick loses his eye as the victim of a hate crime while he’s in Arkansas, which is something that just doesn’t happen to the Rob Lowe version of the character; and Flagg has the power to levitate when he’s provided proper levels of worship, which is not something that the Jamey Sheridan version of the god-like antagonist is shown to do.

As far as full sequences are concerned, the only example of a restored scene is in Episode 4, “The House Of The Dead,” when Fran and Harold Lauder (Owen Teague) are ambushed by a psychotic misogynist named Garvey (Angus Sampson) who has already taken two women hostage – including future Boulder Free Zone spy Dayna Jurgens (Natalie Martinez). There are some significant changes made (Garvey has friends in the book and a larger collection of prisoners), but it’s still more than what’s included in the original adaptation.

How Paramount+’s The Stand Differs From The Book

It would take a lot more space than I have available in this column to go over every single element from Paramount+’s The Stand that is changed from the novel, and I can say that with full authority given that I tracked the alterations week-to-week when the show was originally airing. Writing a series of book-to-show comparison features, I was able to find seven or eight deviations from the source material in every episode (with the exception of the finale). I don’t have the word count here to go over the 58 differences I identified, so let’s just focus on the most significant ones.

The first is apparent from the first scene of the first episode, which features the body crew in the Boulder Free Zone clearing a church of corpses. While the novel is constructed relatively linearly, beginning before the start of the Captain Trips pandemic, the show opts for an alternate construction that is heavy on flashbacks – featuring the reformation of society in Colorado and then going back in time to reveal the paths the various key characters took to get there (and I’ll quickly add that Mother Abigail’s home in Nebraska is cut out of the story entirely, and Hemingford Home is made to be a retirement community in Colorado).

A consequence of this structure is that the show minimizes the cross-country journeys for a number of characters. On the protagonist side, those most affected are Nick Andros and Tom Cullen (Brad William Henke), who meet at a hospital in Arkansas – totally skipping over Nick’s time helping out at a police station after getting assaulted. Tom is also wholly shortchanged in the “third act,” as he is never put under a hypnotic spell, we see relatively nothing of his journey back to Boulder from Vegas, and he never has any of his dreams of Nick after his best friend’s death.

On the antagonist side, the biggest victim is Donald Merwin Elbert a.k.a. The Trashcan Man (Ezra Miller), whose entire journey to New Vegas is cut out (including his nightmarish time with the sick bastard known only as The Kid). Ultimately, Trashy’s entire narrative is changed, as he never sabotages military operations in Vegas and seeks out the nuclear weapon as an apology; instead, Flagg actively sends the psychotic pyromaniac after the weapon, and Trashcan Man ends up bringing it to the wrong place at the wrong time.

Lastly, I have to mention Stephen King’s coda, “The Circle Closes,” which sees the author extend the story beyond the book and follows Fran and Stu Redman (James Marsden) as they travel from Colorado back to Maine. After accidentally falling down a well, Fran has her own personal encounter with Randall Flagg, providing her a more satisfying conclusion beyond just the birth of her daughter, Abigail.

Is It Worthy Of The King?

Let’s start by getting this out of the way: if you’ve never read Stephen King’s The Stand or seen the 1994 adaptation, I’m not sure how one would make heads or tails of the 2020 miniseries. Because of the non-linear storytelling and the scattershot approach to character introductions, it doesn’t make it easy to become invested in the protagonists, and it doesn’t really find its groove until the fourth episode. I don’t imagine that the non-initiated would have the necessary patience with it, which I understand.

This, however, is a column ostensibly for Constant Readers, and with that perspective the miniseries is easy to digest… but it still has some major issues. The majority of the cast does a terrific job bringing their respective characters to life – with the standouts being Alexander Skarsgård, Jovan Adepo, Odessa Young, and the late Brad William Henke – but you get the sense that the filmmakers were overly scared of the idea of remaking and expanding upon what was already done in the 1994 miniseries, and that was a bad instinct. A wholly faithful interpretation of the book with modern special and visual effects and without network television censorship is what it should be, but it isn’t.

It feels kind of dumb to write this, but part of a story being an epic is its capacity to feature an expansive journey between its beginning and the ending, but this adaptation robs us of that by having the very first scene of the series take place after the Boulder Free Zone is up on its feet (ultimately rendering everything before it as a flashback). The miniseries feels like it’s in an unnecessary rush to get to the Boulder vs. Vegas conflict and as a result it shortchanges everything that comes before that point from the book.

Not counting the final episode because it’s original content, the 2020 adaptation of The Stand has about an hour and 30 minutes of extra runtime compared to the 1994 miniseries, and yet it feels like it covers less ground from the source material.

It can be called serviceable as an adaptation, but what does give it an important place in the King canon is that final episode. Given the fact that multiple versions of The Stand have gone into publication, there is a history of it as a fluid text or living document, and this adds to that legacy. The author was right in his assessment that the book doesn’t give Fran Goldsmith the opportunity to make her own stand, despite her essential role in the story, and that’s what is provided with his 2020 coda. The next time I read the novel, I’ll certainly plan on following up the experience with a rewatch of “The Circle Closes.”

How To Watch Paramount+’s The Stand

To start with the obvious, a Paramount+ subscription gives you access to all nine episodes of the miniseries (and you can even check out a few bonus featurettes that are included). It isn’t an exclusive, however. In addition to being on Blu-ray – a key piece for any Stephen King collection – the full show is available for digital purchase at online outlets including Amazon, Google Play, Vudu, and Apple.

Moving into the year 2021, Adapting Stephen King will be staying in the CinemaBlend Streaming section next week to take a close look at Pablo Larrain’s Lisey’s Story on Apple TV+ – the most recent adaptation that King himself scripted. Look for my column on the site on Wednesday, and click through the banners below to discover all of the previous editions.

Though it has been around for a few years, some people might not know that a Paramount+ subscription gives them access to one of the best streaming services around, one that is filled with everything from great original movies and shows to live sports and news, and so much more. Paramount+ has spent the better part of the past half-decade providing some of the best bang for your buck in the streaming world.

2026 has been a big year for Paramount, especially with the premiere of Taylor Sheridan's latest show in the Yellowstone universe, Dutton Ranch. Friday Night Lights and Battlestar Galactica arriving on the streamer. So, what else comes with a Paramount+ subscription? How much does it cost? Can I watch all those new episodes of South Park? Those are just a few of the questions we’ll answer as we break down everything that comes with a Paramount+ subscription.

How Much Does Paramount+ Cost?

As of July 2026, there are two subscription plans: the cheaper Paramount+Essential plan and the more expensive Paramount+Premium plan, which recently replaced the Paramount+ with Showtime:

If you're a committed subscriber, it definitely makes sense to sign up for its annual plan, which essentially works out as 12 months for the price of 10, which is a great deal. I also always recommend getting the Premium plan, because you essentially get double the on-demand library with Showtime titles thrown in, and let's face it, they're some of the best ones! Plus, it's commercial-free.

Paramount+ Subscribers Have Access To Original Movies And Streaming TV Shows

Even before CBS All Access became Paramount+ in March 2021, the streaming service was home to several high-profile original series like the most recent adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand, various titles set in the Star Trek universe, and more. Well, that list has only grown over the years to include great Paramount+ original series like the Taylor Sheridan universe with Landman, Dutton Ranch, Tulsa King, The Mayor of Kingstown, and many more.

A Paramount+ Subscription Offers Hubs For ViacomCBS Brands Like MTV, Nickelodeon And Comedy Central

There is a staggering amount of content on Paramount+, and one of the best ways to make sense of it all is to check out the platform’s various brand-specific hubs.

All in all, there are a total of seven hubs dedicated to the different brands, including CBS, Showtime, BET, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, and the Smithsonian Channel. Each of these sections features shows, movies, and other programming released by each respective channel over the years, and is a great way of finding new series and revisiting some of the best animated TV shows on Nickelodeon or older episodes of NCIS from over the years.

There Are Plenty Of Movies And TV Shows With A Paramount+ Subscription

Even when you don’t factor in all the Paramount+ exclusives, there are tons of movies to choose from, so much so that you can lose yourself in a seemingly endless scroll of movies ranging from Jackie Chan classics to all-time favorite westerns and just about anything and everything in between. The list of best movies on Paramount+ is honestly one of the best in the streaming game and has everything from classics to more modern gems like Top Gun: Maverick and the family-friendly Ryan Reynolds movie, If.

The only thing that trumps the number of movies available on Paramount+ is the vast library of TV shows that are split up into about every genre imaginable, meaning you can watch game shows like The Price is Right and soap operas like The Bold and the Beautiful at all hours. And with the Smithsonian Channel library, some of the best documentaries and docuseries can be found on the platform.

Paramount+ Is The Streaming Home Of South Park

If you want to watch South Park Season 27, or Season 28, or the upcoming Season 29, which premieres in September, Paramount+ is the place to go. After creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker inked a $1.5 billion deal with the media conglomerate in July 2025, the streaming service will be the home of the long-running and controversial adult animated series for at least the next five years, per Deadline. That means all new episodes, streaming specials, and other projects tied to the brand will be available with a subscription for quite some time.

So, if you’ve been trying to go back and watch the best South Park episodes for the first time in years, now is the perfect time to head on down to that friendly Colorado town.

Paramount+ Gives You Access To Big Brother Live Feeds

Not only can you watch last year's Big Brother Season 27 with a Paramount+ subscription, but you can also check out the live feeds showing the houseguests when the show isn’t on CBS now that Season 28 of the long-running reality competition show has kicked off. Though it can differ from time to time, you can switch between four main cameras and a “Quad View,” which lets you keep tabs on all four at one time.

There are a lot of longtime fans of the reality show, and the live feeds have become must-watches for the biggest diehards for some time now. If you haven’t already, this is one great way to keep the drama going before and after primetime.

Premium Paramount+ Subscribers Have Access To Your Local CBS Affiliate

One of the coolest things about the service, at least when it comes to the Paramount+ Premium, is the fact that you can stream your local CBS affiliate whenever you want, meaning you can watch all the primetime shows like Big Brother, Survivor, and Matlock without having to pay for an expensive cable package or deal with setting up a temperamental over-the-air antenna. Now, remember that this perk is only available for subscribers who go with the full-priced option and not the Essential plan.

All Paramount+ subscribers (no matter which plan they choose) can check out the Live TV feeds offered by the streaming service. This includes the 24-hour news network CBSN, CBS Sports, ET Live, and several others dedicated to random movies and TV shows or entire brands.

Watching Live Sports With A Paramount+ Subscription

Could Paramount+ be the best streaming service for sports fans? A subscription boasts a massive amount of content from various sports leagues, around-the-clock sports news, and hours upon hours of highlights and replays. However, it should be noted that there are some key differences between the two subscription plans when it comes to their sports offerings.

The Essential subscription is going to give you access to NFL on CBS highlights, news, and other special coverage, as well as Champions League soccer. The Premium plan gives you access to both of those, plus additional soccer leagues, other sports, and best of all, the ability to watch live NFL games that are shown on your local CBS affiliate. This also includes the Super Bowl whenever it is broadcast on CBS, which will happen again in 2028 for Super Bowl LXII.

You Can Download Select Movies And Shows For Offline Viewing

As is the case with most of the streaming services around, Paramount+ allows users to download movies, shows, and other programs for offline viewing. This is perfect for people traveling, as you can load up on episodes of South Park, Tracker, and The Daily Show or movies like Novocaine and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (or any other Star Trek movie or show) before leaving on a trip.

However, not every show is available to download (eligible titles have the “download” sign next to them in the app), and you will need the Paramount+ Premium subscription, so make sure to keep that in mind before proceeding.

What Devices Support A Paramount+ Subscription?

What’s the use of a Paramount+ subscription if you have no way to enjoy it? Luckily, the streaming service is available on a multitude of devices, including computers, mobile devices (iOS, Android, Amazon), smart TVs, video game consoles like PlayStation and Xbox, and devices like Roku. Paramount+ has a full list of supported devices as well as how to use the app on each of them with handy step-by-step guides.

The full list of supported devices.

How To Cancel Your Paramount+ Subscription

There may come a time when you need to cancel, or at least change, your Paramount+ subscription. If you find yourself in that camp, don’t fret, as ending your membership is a relatively straightforward process.

If you are directly subscribed to Paramount+, you can cancel your subscription by going to your account settings on the Paramount+ website on your computer or mobile browser, and then scrolling down until you find “Cancel Subscription.” From there, you will be taken through a series of prompts that basically ask you if you really want to cancel. Just hit cancel, and your subscription won’t automatically renew on your next billing cycle.

However, if you get Paramount+ through a third-party service like Apple, Prime Video, or Roku, there are a few additional steps you’ll need to keep in mind. For example, if your subscription is through your iPhone, you will need to open the Settings app on your phone, tap your name, tap on subscriptions, then tap on Paramount+, and then finally tap cancel. The same applies when changing from Paramount+ Essential to Paramount+ with Showtime or vice versa. But if you want a more in-depth walkthrough, check out the link below.

All the ways to cancel your Paramount+ subscription.

As you can see, a Paramount+ subscription gives you access to an incredible amount of movies, TV shows, sports, and so much more, making it one of the best streaming services around.

When it comes to streaming services, there are so many options, and today we’ll be looking at Paramount+. The platform has tons of series to watch, all of which you can watch with an active Paramount+ subscription.

While there are plenty of new shows coming to the platform soon, and some arriving as a part of the 2025 TV premiere schedule, there are so many to watch now, especially since this is one of the best streaming services.

For all of those who are wondering what to binge, here are the best that you can check out.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

One of the newest additions to the Star Trek franchise is Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. A spinoff of Star Trek: Discovery, this series follows Christopher Pike, the iconic Captain of the USS Enterprise, and his crew as they travel the galaxy and explore new worlds that had never been touched before.

There are so many Star Trek original shows on Paramount+, from Star Trek: Picard to even an animated series, but Strange New Worlds is such a fun time because it brings back some of the classic characters that we all know from the original series, just in their younger forms. It’s received plenty of praise, and has some awesome visual effects – and it’s perfect for all the Trekkies out there. There are two seasons to stream and a third one is on the way, with it set for release in 2025.

Stream Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on Paramount+.

Never Seen Again

If you’re looking for an excellent true crime series, then Never Seen Again is a great one. The series looks into cases of missing people who just suddenly vanish, and the investigation it has taken to try and find them.

As someone who loves true crime, I’m always interested in missing person cases. I mean, obviously, I don’t want someone to go missing, but I enjoy the story and how these cases came to be. You’ll be wondering how someone went missing just as much as I will by the time you’re done binging this show.

Stream Never Seen Again on Paramount+.

1883

If you’re a fan of Yellowstone and want to know more about the Dutton family from the original series, then 1883 is for you. This popular original on Paramount+ follows the Dutton family, 125 years before the events of Yellowstone, as they set off across the Great Plains and build the legacy that you all know and love now.

1883’s debut was a huge hit for Paramount+, bringing in plenty of fans who love the original story of the Dutton family and want to know more. The show was incredibly well-received and features all the western-goodness you could expect, but further expands the world of Yellowstone.

You can also check out 1923, another spinoff of Yellowstone that stars a hat-wearing Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren.

Stream 1883 on Paramount+.
Stream 1923 on Paramount+

School Spirits 

Starring Peyton List, School Spirits is a teen drama mixed with the supernatural, and follows a teenager who is stuck in the afterlife and investigating her own disappearance while learning to go to a high school where plenty of other ghosts cause her even more drama – even as she gets closer to the truth of what happened to her.

As someone who really does like the best supernatural teen dramas, this is a great one to see and perfect for anyone who is a fan of the genre. It’s not as gritty as some other teen dramas that have come and gone in the last few years, like Riverdale or The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, but there’s still plenty to love and enjoy. At the time of updating this, Season 2 is currently airing.

Stream School Spirits on Paramount+.

FBI True

If you want a great docuseries, then FBI True is an awesome one that you can stream exclusively on Paramount+. The series takes a glance at real cases of the FBI through the stories of former agents.

Look, we live in a world that is dominated by FBI shows and cop series. While those are fun and entertaining, why not check out a show that really digs deep into what the FBI is really like? It’s something that is often kept from the general public, but any time I get to learn anything, this is the kind of show that I tend to head towards. There are six seasons of this show, so why not? Dive into the rabbit hole.

Stream FBI True on Paramount+.

The Family Stallone

Did you ever think that Sylvestor Stallone would get a reality show? Well, here we are. The Family Stallone is the reality TV show that documents the lives of the Stallones, including the wives and daughters of the famous actor.

Sometimes, you really want something you can just turn your brain off for, and The Family Stallone is the answer to that. You’re not signing up for some intense television because honestly, it’s just a fun TV show. The Stallone’s obviously all have great chemistry and they’re enjoyable to watch. There’s two seasons out.

Stream The Family Stallone on Paramount+.

Why Women Kill

In this dark dramedy, we get to see several broken romances that lead to many surprising events, and the women who are trying to take back control of their lives.

Let me just say that while the premise seems super simple, the stories that are told really make you almost want to root for these women to kill these people. It will ensnare you so quickly that you’ll be wanting to plan their murders, too. Why Women Kill is a lot of fun to watch, and if you’re into dark comedy, Why Women Kill has plenty of it.

Stream Why Women Kill on Paramount+.

Frasier 

Yes, you read that right. Frasier has come back, this time in the form of a streaming show. It’s a continuation of the original sitcom that lasted for more than a decade, following Kelsey Grammer as Frasier as he sets out on a new path in life, after the death of his father, as a Harvard professor to be closer to his son.

I mean, there’s really not a lot I have to say to make you watch this. If you were a fan of the original, then you’re probably going to like this one. Obviously, nothing ever beats the first show, but this one is a creature comfort that is the best way to spend a chill Saturday afternoon. There are two seasons.

Stream Frasier on Paramount+.

Mafia Spies

Oh, do you want another true crime series? Mafia Spies is the one for you. The series is a brand new one from Paramount+ that tells the story of the conspiracy that led to the famous assassination of Fidel Castro. It’s a story really unlike any other and super interesting if you’re searching for a new case to follow. Be sure to check it out.

Stream Mafia Spies on Paramount+.

Mayor Of Kingstown 

If you want a crime thriller, then Mayor of Kingstown is a great pick. The series, starring Jeremy Renner, tells the story of a fictional company town in Michigan where the business of incarceration is extremely profitable – which means that crime runs rampant. Renner stars as Mike McLusky, one of the main people keeping the peace of the town when order and justice is something that is not a daily occurrence.

While I will say that the series had its growing pains in its first season, I actually really enjoyed the second, and Renner delivers a compelling performance. There’s nothing quite as suspenseful as a crime thriller, and Mayor of Kingstown is that and more, with three seasons to watch.

Stream Mayor of Kingstown on Paramount+.

Evil

If you want a drama, mixed in with some supernatural fun, look no further than Evil. Ever wonder what would happen if a skeptic about the supernatural and a priest-in-training team up to look into strange happenings that involve ghosts, demons, and more? Evil is all about that, and how no matter what, evil finds its way into everyone in some way, shape, or form.

The premise sounds super interesting. I mean, a skeptic regarding supernatural cases and a priest-in-training who believes in ghosts and demons and all of that, working together? I feel like that’s always a recipe for success. But, trust me when I say you won’t expect some of the amazing twists and turns that this show has to offer. No matter how you feel in real life about the supernatural, you’ll enjoy this show. The Evil cast is also astonishingly talented as well and pulls off this series amazingly.

With five seasons, this is the perfect show for a good binging.

Stream Evil on Paramount+.

Yonder

While it originally hails from South Korea, this is a Paramount+ original and it’s a shame that not that many people know about it. The series tells the story of a man who is able to meet his dead wife in this unknown space called “yonder,” and it’s more than he ever imagined it to be.

This is a sci-fi series that is really unlike anything else. While there’s only one season, it’s truly out of this world and so cool, and if you know South Korean media, you know that it’ll take epic twists and turns unlike any other. It’s creative in a way I haven’t experienced in a long time.

Stream Yonder on Paramount+.

Criminal Minds: Evolution

They’re back – and they’re solving crime. After fifteen seasons, countless cast members leaving and returning, and so many storylines it’s almost hard to keep up with, Criminal Minds brought back some of its cast members for the spinoff, Criminal Minds: Evolution. Now, the group we all know is hunting down a new threat – a network of serial killers that was built anonymously during the pandemic.

Criminal Minds is arguably one of the most successful CBS shows, and was for a reason, because of its ever-changing cast and interesting storylines, but even Criminal Minds: Evolution is worth watching as well. The addition of this new threat that had never been seen in the original show made it super intriguing to watch for any fan of the first series. And, it’s always great to see the characters you care about come back. There’s a third season already planned.

Stream Criminal Minds: Evolution on Paramount+.

Knuckles 

Based on the character from Sonic the Hedgehog, this miniseries was made for video game lovers. Knuckles is a spin-off of Sonic the Hedgehog movies and follows Knuckles the Echidna as he trains an Earthly sheriff named Wade Whipple in the ways of the Echidna – but to help Wade win a bowling tournament.

Knuckles is a miniseries, so there are no known plans for a second season, but it’s a fun show to watch if you’re a fan of the Sonic game. And there’s honestly just something so soothing about hearing Idris Elba voice over this anthropomorphic red echidna that makes me want to keep watching it because why the heck not?

Stream Knuckles on Paramount+.

Tulsa King

Starring Sylvester Stallone in his first scripted television series ever, Tulsa King follows Dwight Manfredi, otherwise known as “The General.” While he was famous in New York City for his time as a Mafia capo, he had to serve a 25 year long sentence in prison, and upon his release, he’s sent all the way to Tulsa, Oklahoma by his boss. But even there, he finds a way to become the king of the criminal world there – rather, the Tulsa King.

I love this series. I really do. I’m not a huge fan of mafia stories, just because I feel like it’s a genre that has been done to death, but Tulsa King does it in a way that really stands out. Stallone is really good in his leading role, and gives an authentic performance, but the addition of the story happening in a place like Tulsa adds to it, because you would never expect it to be there. With two seasons out, there’s plenty to watch already, and a third and fourth one on the way.

Stream Tulsa King on Paramount+.

Special Ops: Lioness

Are you craving a spy thriller? Because boy, do I have one for you. Special Ops: Lioness stars Zoe Saldana in the lead role, and follows the story of a Marine who is drafted into the Lioness program, a female U.S.M.C. team, and her task is simple - to get close to the daughter of a financier, who just so happens to be a terrorist and a threat to the United States.

I love this show and I’m not even a huge fan of spy thrillers. I think it’s mainly because Saldana is just a badass as always, but there are plenty of other great reasons. The action is killer, the story is fun, and the cast is filled to the brim with stars, like Morgan Freeman, Nicole Kidman, and many more. I think anyone will find something to love with this show – and there’s even a second season on the way. The show was also created by Taylor Sheridan, who co-created Yellowstone universe, Mayor of Kingstown, and created Tulsa King.

Stream Special Ops: Lioness on Paramount+.

The Good Fight

The Good Fight is one of those dramas where you want to stay for the whole ride. The series, which is a sequel to The Good Wife, follows the story of Diane Lockhart, played by Christine Baranski, who was a prestigious partner at a law firm. But soon, she ends up losing all her money – as well as her employment – when a scandal occurs involving her mentee/goddaughter, forcing them to rethink their lives moving forward. This leads them to join one of the biggest law firms in Chicago.

I will say that for a series like this, you have to be into politics and the legalities of the world, because there’s a lot of jargon and story around that. But, if you enjoyed The Good Wife, I have a feeling this will be your next best series to watch. With six seasons total, The Good Fight offers an enriching story, brilliant acting, and plenty of drama for anyone to enjoy.

Stream The Good Fight on Paramount+.

South Park Specials

Last but not least, we have to talk about the South Park specials on Paramount+. The creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, got a huge deal with Paramount a few years back, and now, we’ve gotten some hilarious specials from them that are exclusive for the platform, two of which take a hilarious look at COVID-19 through the eyes of our favorite South Park characters, and one talking about streaming services and the war for the best one out there – using the metaphor of actual water streams.

This isn’t even the end of all the South Park specials that are planned for the platform, but I can tell you I’ve laughed so incredibly hard at these first four, and they’ve made my day over and over again whenever I get the chance to revisit this town. In this day and age where the actual show is only releasing a few episodes per season, I’m quite thankful for these specials – and if you’re a fan of South Park, you should certainly check them out, too.

• Stream the South Park: Post Covid special on Paramount+.
• Stream the South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid special on Paramount+.
• Stream the South Park: The Streaming Wars Part 1 special on Paramount+.
• Stream the South Park: The Streaming Wars Part 2 special on Paramount+.
• Stream the South Park: Joining the Pandaverse special on Paramount+.
• Stream the South Park (Not Suitable for Children) special on Paramount+.
• Stream the South Park: The End Of Obesity special on Paramount+.

With the amount of content that’s available, I wouldn’t be surprised if this list needs updating not too long from now to accommodate even more amazing originals. From true crime to animation, the world of Paramount+ is endless and there’s so much more to enjoy. Now to binge all of School Spirits yet again.

Over the last several months, Ezra Miller has received a lot of press not as much for their professional endeavors, including playing The Flash in the DC Extended Universe, but for the controversies surrounding their personal life. This has ranged from being arrested multiple times in Hawaii, to having an order of protection issued against them over his relationship with activist Tokata Iron Eyes, to taking in a woman and her three children to live on the actor’s farm in Vermont, which allegedly has guns lying all over the place and is home to unlicensed marijuana cultivation. Now new information has come to light claiming how Miller allegedly disrupted production on Stephen King’s The Stand.

Ezra Miller appeared in the 2020 miniseries (which can be watched with a Paramount+ subscription) as Trashcan Man, one of the minions of Alexander Skarsgård’s Randall Flagg. An extra from The Stand named Kevin Armstrong spoke with Business Insider (via CBR) about their time around Miller on the miniseries based on the popular Stephen King novel, alleging that the actor frequently spat and screamed at people during takes to get a rise out of them. Armstrong also claimed that Miller once told the following offensive joke:

According to Kevin Armstrong, things got bad enough that Ezra Miller’s legal counselor and manager were called in because many people on set were feeling unsafe around them, with Armstrong describing Miller’s behavior as “disgusting and horribly unprofessional.” These recollections from The Stand are just some of the new allegations laid out in Business Insider’s report. The outlet also shared that Miller behaved like a cult leader to the people they welcomed into their Airbnb rental in Reykjavik, Iceland back in 2020. It’s worth noting that during this time, a video emerged on social media of Miller choking a woman at a bar. As far as what’s going on with Miller these days, Business Insider reports that the actor has been traveling around the United States for months armed and wearing a bulletproof vest because they believe they’re being followed by the FBI and Ku Klux Klan.

The Stand is arguably Ezra Miller’s biggest TV/streaming project to date, though before they hit Hollywood stardom, they recurred as Tucker Bryant on the USA Network series Royal Pains. Other prominent actors who appeared in The Stand included James Marsden, Whoopi Goldberg, Amber Heard and Greg Kinnear; the miniseries was met with mixed critical reception. Miller also voiced D.A. Sinclair in an episode of the animated Amazon series Invincible, which is coming back for a second season, but it remains to be seen if the Sinclair role will be recast.

Looking The Flash, there have been questions about what Ezra Miller’s controversies could mean for the Scarlet Speedster’s solo movie, which will be Miller’s fifth cinematic appearance as Barry Allen following Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad and both versions of Justice League (Miller also cameoed as the character in The CW’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover and in the Peacemaker Season 1 finale. The latest update on that front came earlier this week shortly after it was announced that Warner Bros. will not release Batgirl; for now, the studio is still thinking about what to do with The Flash, and it’s unclear when a decision will be reached. The Flash is expected to be a particularly important DCEU entry, as Miller’s Barry will travel through the multiverse and meet characters like Michael Keaton’s Batman and Sasha Calle’s Supergirl.

CinemaBlend will continue passing along updates about what’s happening with Ezra Miller in both their professional and personal lives. In the meantime, browse through our 2022 TV schedule to learn what small screen entertainment is left to look forward to for the rest of the year.

One could make a strong argument that no single creator has made a greater contribution to pop culture in the last 50 years than Stephen King. It all began with Carrie, the book in 1974 and the movie in 1976, and the author since then has not only established himself as one of the most prolific professional writers alive, but a cross-medium legend. He puts out at least one new book (be it a novel, a collection of short stories, or non-fiction) annually, and it’s actually rare for a year to go by in the 21st century without seeing at least one adaptation premiere on either the big screen or on television.

Between Stephen King movies, books, and TV, his body of work also happens to be a wonderful playground for fans who see themselves as “collectors” – and if you’re one of those people, we’ve built this feature for you. I’ve personally spent years building my own perfect Stephen King collection, and knowing there is a wide world of Constant Readers out there I figured I’d lend a hand helping others do the same. From Carrie, to IT, to Holly, let’s dig in! 

Stephen King Books

It all starts with the books, so we’ll begin the collecting journey here. More advanced collectors (and those with the available disposable income) may be inclined to go the route of buying First Edition copies of each of the titles (most of which are hardcovers), but this is more of a starter guide that points towards the best commonly available editions of each one (which generally means that they are purchasable at a reasonable price).

Must-Own Stephen King Books

If you’re building a core Stephen King collection, it’s a must to start with the classics (Carrie, Firestarter, The Dead Zone), the series (The Dark Tower, The Bill Hodges Trilogy), and the epics (The Stand, IT). The novella collections are special, as are most of his short story omnibi.

• Carrie (1974) – Hardcover
• Salem's Lot (1975) – Hardcover
• The Shining (1977) – Hardcover
• Rage (1977)/The Long Walk (1979)/Roadwork (1981)/The Running Man (1982) – Hardcover (Out Of Print)
• Night Shift (1978) – Hardcover
• The Stand (1978) – Hardcover
• The Dead Zone (1979) – Hardcover
• Firestarter (1980) – Hardcover
• Danse Macabre (1981) – Hardcover
• Cujo (1981) – Hardcover
• The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger (1982) – Hardcover
• Different Seasons (1982) – Hardcover
• Christine (1983) – Hardcover
• Pet Sematary (1983) – Hardcover
• The Talisman (1984) – Hardcover
• Skeleton Crew (1985) – Hardcover
• IT (1986) – Hardcover
• The Dark Tower II: The Drawing Of The Three (1987) – Hardcover
• Misery (1987) – Hardcover
• The Dark Half (1989) – Hardcover
• Four Past Midnight (1990) – Hardcover
• Needful Things (1991) – Hardcover
• The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands (1991) – Hardcover
• Gerald's Game (1992) – Hardcover
• Dolores Claiborne (1992) – Hardcover
• Nightmares & Dreamscapes (1993) – Hardcover
• The Green Mile (1996) – Hardcover
• Desperation (1996) – Hardcover
• The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass (1997) – Hardcover
• The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999) – Hardcover
• On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft (2000) – Hardcover
• Black House (2001) – Hardcover
• The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla (2003) – Hardcover
• The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah (2004) – Hardcover
• The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower (2004) – Hardcover
• Lisey's Story (2006) – Hardcover
• Under The Dome (2009) – Hardcover
• Full Dark, No Stars (2010) – Hardcover
• 11.22.63 (2011) – Hardcover
• The Dark Tower: The Wind Through The Keyhole (2012) – Hardcover
• Doctor Sleep (2013) – Hardcover
• Mr. Mercedes (2014) – Hardcover
• Revival (2014) – Hardcover
• Finders Keepers (2015) – Hardcover
• End Of Watch (2016) – Hardcover
• Gwendy's Button Box (2017) – Hardcover
• The Outsider (2018) – Hardcover
• If It Bleeds (2020) – Hardcover
• Later (2021) – Paperback
• Billy Summers (2021) – Hardcover
• Gwendy’s Final Task (2022) – Hardcover
• Fairy Tale (2022) – Hardcover
• Holly (2023) - Hardcover
• You Like It Darker (2024) - Hardcover

Worth Checking Out

Once you have the essentials, you can expand from there. A number of these are great books – they just don’t have quite the same legacy as the best known titles in the Stephen King library. Some of them are also… bad (we’re being honest today).

• Cycle Of The Werewolf (1983) – Paperback
• Thinner (1984) – Hardcover
• The Eyes Of The Dragon (1984) – Hardcover
• The Tommyknockers (1987) – Hardcover
• Insomnia (1994) – Hardcover
• Rose Madder (1995) – Hardcover
• The Regulators (1996) – Hardcover
• Bag Of Bones (1998) – Hardcover
• Hearts In Atlantis (1999) – Hardcover
• Dreamcatcher (2001) – Hardcover
• Everything's Eventual (2002) – Hardcover
• From A Buick 8 (2002) – Hardcover
• The Colorado Kid (2005) – Paperback
• Cell (2006) – Hardcover
• Blaze (2007) – Hardcover
• Duma Key (2008) – Hardcover
• Just After Sunset (2008) – Hardcover
• Joyland (2013) – Hardcover
• The Bazaar Of Bad Dreams (2015) – Hardcover
• Sleeping Beauties (2017) – Hardcover
• Elevation (2018) – Hardcover
• The Institute (2019) – Hardcover

Optional

You may not feel that you need a coffee table book with Stephen King discussing the creepiness and legacy of gargoyles, but if you’re a completist, you’ll want to have these titles in your collection.They do make for nice additions to any Stephen King library.

• Nightmares In The Sky (1988) – Hardcover
• I Shudder At Your Touch (1991) – Hardcover (Note: Features the story “The Revelations Of Becka Paulson, which isn’t published in any other hardcover)
• Storm Of The Century (1999) – Hardcover
• Secret Windows: Essays And Fiction On The Craft Of Writing (2000) – Hardcover
• Faithful (2004) – Hardcover
• Blockade Billy (2010) – Hardcover
• Hearts In Suspension (2016) – Hardcover
• Flight Or Fright (2018) – Hardcover

Stephen King Movie Adaptations

Stephen King’s relationship with Hollywood is just about as long as his history as a published novelist, with Brian Da Palma’s Carrie having been released just two years after the novel it’s based on was first published. The author has an awesome big screen legacy, and thus there are a large number of titles to populate a collection.

Must-Own Stephen King Movies

Not only have some great movies been made based on Stephen King books, but there are some downright iconic ones too – and it’s primarily those titles we are calling essential for any collection. Some titles are considered among the best horror movies of all time… and considered among the best movies of all time period:

• Carrie (1976) – Collector’s Edition 4K UHD
• The Shining (1980) – 4K UHD
• Creepshow (1982) – Collector’s Edition 4K UHD
• Cujo (1983) – 4K UHD
• The Dead Zone (1983) – Collector's Edition 4K UHD
• Christine (1983) – 4K UHD
• Children Of The Corn (1984) – Special Edition 4K UHD
• Firestarter (1984) – Collector’s Edition Blu-ray
• Silver Bullet (1985) – Collector’s Edition 4K UHD
• Stand By Me (1986) – 4K UHD
• Maximum Overdrive (1986) – Blu-ray
• Pet Sematary (1989) – 4K UHD
• Misery (1990) – 4K UHD
• Tales From The Darkside: The Movie (1990) – Collector’s Edition 4K UHD
• Needful Things (1993) – 4K UHD
• The Shawshank Redemption (1994) – 4K UHD
• Dolores Claiborne (1995) – Blu-ray
• The Green Mile (1999) – 4K UHD
• The Mist (2007) – Collector's Edition 4K UHD
• IT (2017) – 4K UHD
• IT Chapter Two (2019) – 4K UHD
• Doctor Sleep (2019) – 4K UHD
• The Boogeyman (2023) – Blu-ray

Worth Checking Out

These Stephen King movies aren’t quite up to the high standard set by the brilliant adaptations above, and in some cases more liberties are taken with the source material, but there’s still plenty of good stuff, including a few solid anthology films.

• Cat's Eye (1985) – 4K UHD
• Creepshow 2 (1987) – Special Edition Blu-ray
• The Running Man (1987) – 4K UHD
• Sleepwalkers (1992) – Collector’s Edition Blu-ray
• The Dark Half (1993) – Blu-ray (Out Of Print)
• The Mangler (1995) – Blu-ray
• The Night Flier (1998) – DVD
• Apt Pupil (1998) – DVD
• Hearts In Atlantis (2001) – DVD
• 1408 (2007) – Blu-ray
• A Good Marriage (2014) – Blu-ray
• Pet Sematary (2019) – 4K UHD
• Firestarter (2022) – Blu-ray
• Pet Sematary: Bloodlines – 4K UHD

Optional

It’s tricky to recommend these Stephen King movies because they ride so low on the quality scale, but they exist for you to get if you’re a completist.

• Graveyard Shift (1990) – Blu-ray
• Thinner (1996) – Collector's Edition Blu-ray
• Carrie (2013) – Collector's Edition 4K UHD
• Dreamcatcher (2003) – Blu-ray
• Secret Window (2004) – Blu-ray
• Dolan's Cadillac (2009) – Blu-ray
• Riding The Bullet (2004) – DVD
• Mercy (2014) – DVD
• Cell (2016) – Blu-ray
• The Dark Tower (2017) – 4K UHD

Stephen King TV Adaptations

A huge part of what makes Stephen King’s books so great is their attention to detail – and while this typically means that the tomes wind up getting pretty damn heavy, it’s also an element of his style that has led to there being a great relationship between King and the TV world. These adaptations provide the runtime real estate that regularly let adaptations be remarkably faithful to their respective source material.

Must-Own Stephen King TV Adaptations

If you’re looking for the cream of the crop material when it comes to Stephen King’s history on the small screen, you’ll find it below. Admittedly the legacy isn’t quite as iconic as the theatrical material, but we’ve still seen some fantastic adaptations for the small screen.

• Salem's Lot (1979) – Blu-ray
• It (1990) – Blu-ray
• The Stand (1994) – Blu-ray
• The Langoliers (1995) – DVD
• The Shining (1997) – Blu-ray
• Storm Of The Century (1999) – DVD (Based on original script by Stephen King)
• The Dead Zone (2002) – DVD (Complete Series)
• Kingdom Hospital (2004) – DVD
• Salem's Lot (2004) – DVD (Best version in Triple Terror Collection)
• Nightmares & Dreamscapes (2006) – DVD
• Haven (2010) – DVD (Complete Series) (Note: Each season was released on Blu-rays, but copies of Season 4, Season 5, and Season 5.1 can be difficult to find)
• Under The Dome (2013) – Blu-ray (Season 1) & Blu-ray (Season 2) & Blu-ray (Season 3)
• 11.22.63 (2016) – Blu-ray
• Mr. Mercedes (2017) – Blu-ray (Note: Region-Free Complete Series)
• Castle Rock (2018) – 4K UHD (Season 1) & Blu-ray (Season 2)
• The Outsider (2020) – Blu-ray (Season 1)
• The Stand (2020) – Blu-ray (Complete Limited Series)
• Chapelwaite (2021) Blu-ray (Note: This a Region Free release from Australia)

Worth Checking Out

Quality-wise, these TV adaptations range between “middle of the road” and “downright awful. Some of them definitely have their redeeming qualities, and will certainly be of interest to any Stephen King collector who is also a completist.

• Sometimes They Come Back (1991) – Blu-ray
• Golden Years (1991) – DVD (Based on original script by Stephen King)
• The Tommyknockers (1993) – DVD
• Quicksilver Highway (1997) – DVD
• Trucks (1997) – DVD
• Rose Red (2002) – DVD (Based on original script by Stephen King)
• Carrie (2002) – Blu-ray (Out Of Print)
• Desperation (2006) – DVD
• Children Of The Corn (2009) – Blu-ray
• Bag Of Bones (2011) – DVD
• Big Driver (2014) – DVD

Optional

If you’re looking to get absolutely every Stephen King adaptation, including the anthology shows that turned the author’s works into single episodes, this section is for you:

• The Twilight Zone (1985) – DVD (Season 1) (Note: Episode “Gramma” based on the Stephen King story of the same name)
• Tales From The Darkside (1984) – DVD (Season 1) (Note: Episode “Word Processor Of The Gods” based on the Stephen King story of the same name) & DVD (Season 4) (Note: Stephen King wrote the episode “Sorry, Right Number”)
• Monsters (1988) - DVD (Complete Series) (Note: Out Of Print, Season 3 Episode “The Moving Finger” based on the Stephen King story of the same name)
• The Outer Limits (1997) – DVD (Season 3) (Note: Out Of Print; Episode “The Revelations Of ‘Becka Paulson” based on Stephen King’s short story of the same name)
• The X-Files (1998) – Blu-ray (Season 5) (Note: Stephen King wrote the episode “Chinga”)
• Creepshow (2019) – Blu-ray (Season 1 - Episode “Gray Matter” based on the Stephen King story of the same name) & Blu-ray (Season 2 - which includes the "Creepshow Animated Special," based on the Stephen King story “Survivor Type”)

As noted up top, there are always more Stephen King books being written and adaptations being made, so any collection of the author’s works is a fluid collection – but we’ll keep this list updated with all of the latest releases as they become available. For the latest news about new developments in the world of King physical media, check out my weekly column The King Beat, which goes live here on CinemaBlend every Thursday.

Note: This feature purposefully does not include sequels that are not based on pre-existing Stephen King works or written by King himself (i.e. the Children of the Corn sequels, Pet Sematary 2, The Rage: Carrie 2, etc.).

Additionally, Gerald's Game, In The Tall Grass, 1922, and Mr. Harrigan's Phone are notably absent from this list because they are not currently available on home video, and can only be watched on Netflix. The same is true for the series Lisey’s Story, which is an Apple TV+ exclusive.

The Skarsgårds have been around for quite a while and are an acting legacy, beginning with the powerhouse that is Dune’s Stellan Skarsgård. Alexander Skarsgård is the eldest of Stellan’s four actor sons, and he has a resume of pretty epic roles himself. While he feels he's sometimes fallen into being type-cast as the “Dude who takes his shirt off” in the past (and certainly looks great in shirtless roles), the eldest Skarsgård brother has also proven his worth in Hollywood as a man with range and superb acting chops. We’ve compiled a list of some of the best Alexander Skarsgård movies and TV shows, and how you can watch them streaming at home or add them to your own permanent Skarsgård collection. 

True Blood (2008 - 2014)

If you’re anything like me, you first fell in love with Alexander Skarsgård in HBO’s racy vampire drama, True Blood. Skarsgård plays the moody, bad boy Viking vampire who owns a popular vampire club in the series. His performance and character is top notch, and is one of the many favorites in the series. 

Alexander Skarsgård is a pivotal character throughout True Blood, and the series pretty much a must-see for any fans of the actor. Not only is Skarsgård’s Eric Northman blood thirsty and completely alluring, but the series’ setting of Louisiana brings an entirely immersive experience to the series and really plays on that modern vampire aesthetic. 10/10 vampire series; would binge again.

Stream True Blood on HBO Max.
Buy/Rent True Blood digitally on Amazon.
Buy True Blood on DVD/Blu-Ray on Amazon.

Kill Your Darlings (2006)

Not to be confused with Daniel Radcliffe’s later film of the same name, Kill Your Darlings centers around five very different individuals and their joint journey from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Alexander Skarsgård plays a trans woman who, after attempting to light herself on fire, meets up with two other travelers heading to Sin City to see the very same celebrity psychiatrist. 

If you were looking for a hidden gem of a performance from Alexander Skarsgård to even out the number of his impressive and well-known roles, Kill Your Darlings should fit the bill perfectly. Although set in America and spoken a fair amount in English, the film features a number of Swedish actors and was made by a Swedish director. It’s a niche movie and you’ll be hard pressed to find it streaming, but you can buy it pretty cheap on DVD - and it’s worth it. 

Buy Kill Your Darlings on DVD/Blu-Ray on Amazon.

The Legend of Tarzan (2016)

While it was kind of hard to get Disney’s animated version of Tarzan and Brendan Fraser’s George of the Jungle out of my head when thinking about shirtless, loincloth-clad men swinging through trees in a jungle, seeing Alexander Skarsgård completely dominate the role of Tarzan in The Legend of Tarzan certainly did the trick. This was made for a little bit of an older audience, and Skarsgård’s take on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ character totally stands up, and he’s backed by an all-star cast that includes the lovely Margot Robbie and Christoph Waltz. 

Buy/Rent The Legend of Tarzan digitally on Amazon.
Buy The Legend of Tarzan on DVD/Blu-Ray on Amazon.

The Northman (2022)

Alexander Skarsgård is close to his Scandinavian roots in The Northman, in which he plays a Viking prince set on avenging his murdered father. The Northman was brutal for the cast, especially Skarsgård, to film and that brutality certainly shows in the finished product. 

The Northman is Alexander Skarsgård’s most recently released film and is currently available to watch in a theater near you. While it isn’t streaming just yet, according to The Wrap there is a good chance you’ll be able to catch it at home with a Peacock subscription once its theatrical window is over, as it is a Universal picture. 

Big Little Lies (2017 - 2019)

Based on the best selling novel of the same name, Big Little Lies was a big deal. It had an enormous budget and cost pretty much the same as Game of Thrones to make, per episode. While Alexander Skarsgård is not one of the main characters, he is surrounded by some of Hollywood’s most renowned leading ladies, like Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman.

Big Little Lies is a dark, comedic series that centers on a murder in a high class, beach front neighborhood. It’s funny and dramatic, and with Season 1 having over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, a pretty solid watch.

Stream Big Little Lies on HBO Max.
Buy Big Little Lies digitally on Amazon.
Buy Big Little Lies on DVD/Blu-Ray on Amazon.

The Stand (2020 - 2021)

Who doesn’t love a good Stephen King film/TV adaptation? There have been a ton, and new ones are being made pretty much all the time. Paramount’s limited The Stand series is one of the handful of adaptations that have been made of King’s most lengthy stand alone work, and it’s definitely a must see for fans of both the horror writer and of Alexander Skarsgård.

Alexander Skarsgård plays the antagonist of The Stand, and his performance of Randall Flagg is pretty spot-on. Even with an all-star cast, Skarsgård stands out in the newest version of Stephen King’s The Stand. His character tends to pop up in other King novels as well, so the possibility for Skarsgård’s version of the character to live on in future projects is, to me, reason enough to hone in on Skarsgård’s Randall Flagg and check out the Paramount limited series.

Stream The Stand on Paramount+.
Buy The Stand digitally on Amazon.
Buy The Stand on DVD/Blu-Ray on Amazon.

What Maisie Knew (2012)

While Alexander Skarsgård plays the brooding, morally gray character pretty often, his role in What Maisie Knew is refreshingly nice and very endearing. The film centers on the titular child of two freshly divorced parents who have new partners. Skarsgård is Maisie’s new caretaker and her mother’s new husband. The film is about Maisie and her new circumstances, and the relationship she forms with Skarsgård’s character. 

Stream What Maisie Knew on Peacock.
Stream What Maisie Knew digitally on Amazon.
Buy What Maisie Knew on DVD/Blu-Ray on Amazon.

Melancholia (2011)

Melancholia is a visually stunning film. While the movie is far from a feel-good watch, it’s moving nonetheless. Melancholia explores the depths of depression with the story of two sisters as the world hurdles to an end as a planet is set to crash into Earth. Alexander Skarsgård plays the groom of one sister, played by Kirsten Dunst, who are getting married amid the impending disaster. The interesting plot line mixed with how artistically the film is approached is reason enough to watch this movie, and the performances from the stars are on point, as well. 

Stream Melancholia on Roku.
Buy/Rent Melancholia digitally on Amazon.
Buy Melancholia on DVD/Blu-Ray on Amazon.

On Becoming A God In Central Florida (2019)

Alexander Skarsgård and Kirsten Dunst team ups are killer, as On Becoming a God in Central Florida is the second which to make the list. I can only describe this series as a wild ride from start to finish. Set in the early ‘90s, this dark comedy handles the toxicity of pyramid schemes and the unexpected happens at pretty much every turn.

Alexander Skarsgård is pretty much unrecognizable in the TV series, but he gives a spectacular performance. He is only really in the first episode, but he is very much memorable. It’s a must see, and you’ll probably stick around even after Skarsgård makes his exit; it’s that good.

Stream On Becoming a God in Central Florida on Showtime.
Buy On Becoming a God in Central Florida digitally on Amazon.
Buy On Becoming a God in Central Florida on DVD on Amazon.

Disconnect (2012)

While Disconnect came out 10 years ago, it’s still very much relevant today. The film centers around three stories as a group of people navigate solving very real problems that result from living in a world where the internet runs everything. It’s a reflective film and speaks to the dangers of having your whole life being online. Alexander Skarsgård is acting opposite Jason Bateman and a whole cast of fantastic performers.

Buy/Rent Disconnect digitally on Amazon.
Buy Disconnect on DVD/Blu-Ray on Amazon.

While a lot of the Alexander Skarsgård performances in this “Best of” list showcase some serious talent in serious roles and prove he’s way more than just a man who takes his shirt off, the actor also has some wild range and does a great job in comedic roles as well. This can be seen in his smaller, yet awesome roles in Zoolander, Eastbound & Down, and Drunk History. They are totally worth checking out too, but just didn’t quite make the list. 

With The Northman having recently hit theaters and gaining some massively positive attention for Alexander Skarsgård, I can’t help but think there may be some great things on the horizon for the actor. While he’s been in the business and in Hollywood for a good two decades, I can’t wait to see what the next ten years look like for the talent, as he, arguably, still has lots of places where he can go in what is sure to be a very long career.

In my years of watching many big-time movies and TV shows, from horror series to fantasy movies to superhero films, I never quite noticed how often this actor seemed to pop up in some of my favorite projects. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that James Marsden is one of the most versatile actors that is in the business right now, and his resume of excellent films and TV shows proves that. 

But I know that my word won’t be enough for you, so that’s where this list comes in handy. Here are the best James Marsden movies and TV shows, and how you can watch them streaming right now, from his musical hits to miniseries’. 

The X-Men Series (2000-2014)

The X-Men film series has spanned so many movies that it’s hard to put down just one premise, so I’ll say this simply - the X-Men are a Marvel team  full of mutants with different powers that are tasked with saving the world on several occasions, often led by one of their strongest characters, Wolverine, or Charles Xavier (Professor X). 

For several years, James Marsden portrayed Scott Summers, otherwise known as Cyclops, a mutant who has the ability to emit beams of energy from his eyes that could kill anything and anyone, but due to this, he has to wear protective eyewear at all times, even when sleeping. Out of everyone that could have played this role, I do think Marsden did it the best. No one else could bring that same amount of swag and coolness to the character that he did, and honestly I wish he had played the role even longer, but everyone has to move on from superheroes at some point. 

Stream The X-Men Series on Disney+. 
Rent The X-Men Series on Amazon.

The Notebook (2004)

Probably one of the most famous romantic dramas of all time, The Notebook -- based on the novel of the same name by Nicholas Sparks -- tells the story of two souls and their undying love for each other back in the 1940s, and how somehow, love can conquer all. 

James Marsden plays Lon Hammond, Jr., one of the love interests in the film, and while this was one of Marsden’s earlier big movie roles, I do think it’s one of his best. His chemistry with Rachel McAdams was great for the time that they were together, and he shows off his acting skills in a way he hadn’t done before this. I also personally really enjoy the main love story. As talked about as it is, it does deserve a lot of the praise it receives.

Stream The Notebook on HBO Max. 
Rent The Notebook on Amazon.

Enchanted (2007)

If you’re looking for a fun fantasy film with Disney charm, check out Enchanted. This movie, starring the wonderful Amy Adams, tells the story of an animated princess who suddenly has her world thrown upside down when she is transported to the real world by the stepmother of the prince she was due to marry. Now, she has to somehow find her way back - while surviving New York City. 

If I can recall correctly, this was the first time I had ever seen James Marsden, who plays Prince Edward, and what a movie to be introduced to him on because Marsden seemed to just be having the time of his life in this role, at least from what I could see. I think of him more as a dramatic actor but seeing him as Prince Edward, this handsome man who has no idea how the normal world works, makes me laugh every time. With the sequel, Disenchanted, coming out soon, I think it might be time to do a re-watch. 

Stream Enchanted on Disney+. 
Rent Enchanted on Amazon.

Westworld (2016-2018)

As the first of a few television shows on here, let’s start out with a banger with Westworld. In this fun sci-fi series from HBO, Westworld takes place in a dystopian future where there is a theme park of the old wild west built with humanistic looking androids that will do whatever you want. However, when some of these androids begin to develop a consciousness and feelings, all hell breaks loose. 

For the first two seasons, James Marsden played Teddy Flood, one of the main characters, and honestly he knocks it out of the park. The Westworld cast is filled with talent regardless, but I really liked Marsden’s character and his interactions with Dolores, played by Evan Rachel Wood. While it’s a shame he isn’t on the show anymore, it’s still such a great series to watch, and with Season 4 hopefully coming out soon, this moment might be great to binge-watch it. 

Stream Westworld on HBO Max. 

Hairspray (2007)

This movie is hands down one of my favorite musical movies yet. In Hairspray, get transported back to the 1960s in Baltimore, where young teenager Tracy Turnblad is hoping to try out for her favorite show, Corny Collins, as a dancer. Life out there is tough for a girl like her - but as long as she has the power of dance and love on her side, nothing can stop her. 

James Marsden portrays Corny Collins in Hairspray, and while this movie had some perfect casting, nothing quite fit as much as Marsden playing the host of the show. He just has this perfect charisma and charm that only he could pull off, and he also has an excellent singing voice and the moves as well. Hairspray in general is a musical that everyone would love, with some amazing music like “You Can’t Stop The Beat” and “Without Love,” to speaking about important messages such as racial segregation and body love. If you haven’t watched it yet, be sure to check it out now. 

Stream Hairspray on Netflix.
Rent Hairspray on Apple TV.

Dead To Me (2019-Present)

If you’re looking for an amazing dark comedy to binge next, check out Dead to Me. In this Netflix original series, two women are both in a grief group following the deaths of their husbands, one of which was hit by a car and the other a supposed cardiac arrest. However, it’s revealed that not everything is as it seems, and sooner or later, secrets begin to unfold. 

James Marsden plays Steve Wood, one of the main characters of this show. I would tell you more about his character but this is a series that I really think you should go into blind. Marsden is fantastic in his role and really rocks it in every scene that he is in, but the Dead to Me cast, overall, is so talented and creates an engrossing story that will have your eyes glued to the TV from start to finish, and Marsden is a huge part of that. Definitely one of the best shows on Netflix to watch.

Stream Dead to Me on Netflix.

30 Rock (2012-2013)

Next up, we have the classic comedy, 30 Rock. In this sitcom that went on for several seasons, 30 Rock follows a head writer at a sketch comedy show, showing her daily life as she has to deal with not only her co-workers but the the stars of her show, and the constant struggles she has to face. 

No, Marsden was not a main member of the 30 Rock cast, but he was a major recurring character for a couple of seasons from 2012-2013, playing Criss Chros, Liz Lemon’s boyfriend and later husband, and while he wasn’t in the show for super long, I’ll always remember his character for being a genuinely good guy who sells organic hot dogs. Marsden was the perfect choice for this role, and his interactions with Tina Fey’s character are some of the best in the series. 

Stream 30 Rock on Hulu.

27 Dresses (2007)

I feel like when it comes to romantic comedies, this is what everyone knows James Marsden from. 27 Dresses is a romantic comedy about a young woman who has been a bridesmaid all her life - no, seriously, twenty-seven times. Now, when her sister is getting married, she’s serving as a bridesmaid again - only this time, watching her sister marry the man that she actually loves. 

What makes James Marsden so good in this role is not only his charisma but his natural charm that he has for roles like this. I love his relationship with Katherine Heigl’s Jane in the movie, even in their rocky moments. One of my favorite rom-com scenes ever are those two getting drunk as heck and dancing on the bar together because it just feels so real and something that a couple would do in the real world, and it makes me smile every time. 

Stream 27 Dresses on HBO Max.
Rent 27 Dresses on Amazon. 

Sonic The Hedgehog (2020)

Next up, we have a video game movie that ended up doing a lot better than I ever thought it would. Sonic the Hedgehog, one of the few movies that was released in theaters in 2020, tells the story of the titular character, who somehow ends up in a small town out of nowhere. When a police officer stumbles across him, the two of them decide to team up when an evil genius plans to perform experiments on the hedgehog.

James Marsden plays Tom Wachowski, the police officer that Sonic works with, and I have to say, this film impressed me. As a gamer myself who grew up playing Sonic, this movie felt like a breath of fresh air in the film industry that so often has trouble trying to adapt video games to screen, as they told a genuinely fun buddy story between a famous character and someone new. Marsden did a great job playing Tom and I loved the friendship that blossomed between him and Sonic. Definitely a winner here. 

Stream Sonic the Hedgehog on Hulu. 
Rent Sonic the Hedgehog on Amazon.

The Stand (2020-2021)

Last but not least, we have the miniseries, The Stand, based on the novel from Stephen King. In this post-apocalyptic show, a pandemic has wiped out almost all of the population of the world, and the few survivors have turned to a dark figure or a light figure. Now, it’s a battle between good vs. evil in a world where everything is grey. 

As someone who enjoys the heck out of horror franchises and Stephen King adaptations, The Stand is one of my favorites from the modern era. James Marsden as Stu was, again, such perfect casting, and his character feels like someone we could all relate to, someone that genuinely just wants to do good, which Marsden acts to perfection. The Stand itself is a great miniseries with plenty of awesome characters to love, so you should check it out soon. 

Stream The Stand on Paramount Plus.

With so many amazing roles, one can only wonder what he’s going to do next. Whatever the case, I’m sure I’m going to love it regardless if Marsden is in it. Now if only Disenchanted could come out sooner, I’d really love that. 

By 1994, a total of 26 Stephen King adaptations had been produced in the span of 18 years, proving the extreme viability of the author’s work in film and television… but one book continued to prove a stubborn exception. The Stand was the fourth novel that King had published, hardcovers first hitting stores in October 1978, and while it was a massive hit that helped solidify the writer’s growing clout, it was also material that Hollywood kept roasting in development hell for years, earning it a reputation as being impossible to adapt.

Like a number of other Stephen King movies, the journey began with George A. Romero at the helm. As I noted in my column about 1982’s Creepshow, that particular horror anthology film was created in part because Romero and King wanted to earn a strong enough reputation so that they could make a big screen version of The Stand with both substantial resources and creative control. But while Creepshow was indeed a hit, it still didn’t provide them with the acceleration needed to get the beloved pandemic epic off the ground.

Stephen King penned many different drafts of the screenplay for the potential feature, trying to trim and cut the material where possible, but still it proved too massive for the medium. An approach was devised to try a two-film adaptation – the first titled The Plague, and the second titled The Stand – but the idea was before its time. The dream of bringing the novel to the big screen was ostensibly killed.

It was in 1990 with the airing of Tommy Lee Wallace’s IT that everything changed, however. While Stephen King maintained concerns about content censorship on network television and the disruptive nature of commercial breaks, he was impressed by the miniseries’ ability to capture the full scope of his incredibly long book. Reteaming with director Mick Garris, with whom he had worked on his first ever original film, Sleepwalkers (a project not covered in this column because it’s not an adaptation), King began scripting would become 1994’s small screen version of The Stand – which, as you may have picked up by this point, is the focus of this week’s Adapting Stephen King.

What The Stand Is About

The Stand proved to be a headache to adapt once it was completed and in print, but to be fair, it was a headache before that as well. The book was not only a struggle for Stephen King to produce creatively – he took to referring it as “my own little Vietnam” while in the process of writing it – but it also led to serious conflicts in his relationship with his publisher at the time, Doubleday.

As described by Stephen King, The Stand was the result of three disparate ideas that found haven together in his brain. The journey began in the mid-1970s when the author and his family lived in Colorado, and the writer began reading about Patty Hearst – the granddaughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, who saw famously kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army and ended up joining their cause. To paraphrase King from the commentary track on the miniseries’ Blu-ray, he was struck by the idea of strong evil overcoming weak good.

The second ingredient came from randomly flipping around the radio dial. By pure coincidence he landed on a station broadcasting a minister delivering a fire-and-brimstone sermon, and one line in particular stuck in his mind: “Once in every generation a plague shall fall among them.” He ended up tacking this phrase right above his typewriter (bit of trivia: while it’s not a direct line in the finished book, King did use that line in dialogue in the adaptation).

Lastly, there was what’s referred to as the "Dugway sheep incident." In 1968, testing of a chemical weapon at the United States Army-controlled Dugway Proving Ground in Utah resulted in approximately 6,000 sheep on neighboring farms being poisoned and killed. King read that a simple change in wind direction could have resulted in the toxic cloud blowing to Salt Lake City, and had that happened the results would have been catastrophic.

Combined with Stephen King’s greater aspirations to create a Lord of the Rings-style fantasy epic with America as the backdrop, The Stand began to flow.

It didn’t always flow easy. Hundreds of pages in, King found that his characters were recovering from the plague and starting to rebuild familiar modern life, and it was becoming a story he wasn’t particularly interested in telling. He considered giving up on the idea, and spent weeks going on walks to overcome blocks – but coming to the realization that he needed another element of massive destruction, namely a bomb, put him back on the right path.

The manuscript that Stephen King turned in to Doubleday was a monster, stacked like a skyscraper at about 1,200 pages… and the publisher didn’t exactly appreciate it. According to their accounting department, production costs wouldn’t allow the printing of a book so ridiculously massive, and as a result King was forced to cut approximately 400 pages (the “Complete and Uncut Edition” of the book was eventually published in 1990). It all but ended his relationship with Doubleday – though I already told the rest of that story in my column about Mary Lambert’s Pet Sematary.

With deep themes about the dangerous path of modernity and technology, not to mention human nature, The Stand begins with a mistake, as a biological weapon is unleashed at an army base and a hapless soldier named Charles "Charlie" Campion abandons his post. His hope is that he and his family can outrun the outrageously deadly super flu that has been cooked up in the lab, but what he doesn’t know is that he is already too late and inadvertently winds up spreading the virus across America.

The pandemic – which goes by the name Captain Trips, among others – wipes out most of the populations on Earth, but there are those that have what seems like a miraculous immunity. As unrelated characters like Stu Redman, Fran Goldsmith, Larry Underwood, Harold Lauder, Glen Bateman, Nick Andros, Tom Cullen, Lloyd Henreid, Donald Merwin Elbert, and others try to figure out how to survive in the post-apocalyptic world, they nightly experience dreams that border on visions.

One of these psychic events sees characters connecting with Mother Abigail Fremantle – a 108 year-old-woman who beckons people to come to her in Hemingford Home, Nebraska so that a new, peaceful society may start to form. The other dreams, however, are devilish visits from The Dark Man a.k.a. The walkin’ Dude a.k.a. Randall Flagg – who operates as a cult leader gathering a contingent of the war-hungry in Las Vegas, with the ultimate goal being to wipe out anyone who doesn’t kiss the evil, levitating sorcerer’s ring.

How Mick Garris’ The Stand Differs From The Book

Stephen King exhibited a great deal of patience and restraint in the adaptation process of The Stand, very much taking a “do it right, or don’t do it at all” mentality – and the exhibited virtue paid off. Though he didn’t get the chance to bring the epic to the big screen, he was able to write and executive produce what is an immensely faithful live-action version that very much is the book.

Certain alterations were necessary with the new medium, including some notable cuts – and it should be noted that the trimming process was aided by the fact that King based his script on the shorter version of the book. While the aforementioned “Complete and Uncut Edition” of The Stand was officially released four years prior to the adaptation, the extra material – such as Trashcan Man’s horrific journey with the sadistic rapist known only as The Kid – wasn’t a part of the plan as the screenplay was coming together (let’s also be real: that content was never going to fly on ‘90s network television anyway).

On that note, there is a lot of graphic content in The Stand that was deemed unsuitable even with the production airing after 9pm with a parental guidance warning. In fact, Mick Garris and Stephen King had to actually fight the standards and practices people just to show dead bodies with their eyes open. The corpses are far less gruesome than King describes in the book (there’s no evidence of the horrific “tube neck” that is described from the deadly influenza bug), and the violent standoff in the desert that introduces Dayna Jurgens (Kellie Overbey) is wholly axed. Censorship additionally seems like a very reasonable explanation as to why Nick Andros (Rob Lowe) doesn’t wind up losing an eye early in his post-apocalyptic journey.

As far as all the main characters go, most are represented exactly as they appear on the page, but there are some changes. Most of these are minor: Harold Lauder (Corin Nemec) doesn’t start the story as an obese teen constantly munching on Payday bars; and Randall Flagg (Jamey Sheridan) doesn’t levitate, but he can turn into a raven and fly. The most significant deviations from the text involve Nadine Cross (Laura San Giacomo) and Fran Goldsmith (Molly Ringwald).

The former sees her storyline combined with that of Rita Blakemoor, a pill popping socialite who Larry Underwood (Adam Storke) meets in New York City, but who commits suicide shortly after they get into New Jersey. The latter isn’t revealed as being pregnant until halfway through the miniseries, and it is heavily implied that Stu Redman (Gary Sinise) is the father (in the novel she is introduced as pregnant, and the father of the baby is presumed killed by Captain Trips).

Is It Worthy Of The King?

Mick Garris’ The Stand was a massive undertaking for its era. The schedule saw the project filmed across three seasons and in six different states; a double-digit number of pages were regularly shot in a single day; and it ultimately features a triple-digit number of speaking parts. The scope was so large that in order to save money, the production had to shoot on 16mm film instead of the standard 35mm, limiting the capacity of the camera.

In reflection, this leaves the 1994 miniseries in a strange middle place. On the one hand, it really is an undisputedly impressive effort: it features a spectacular ensemble cast filled with awesome talent during a time when the small screen was still looked down on compared to film, and it successfully pushed the boundaries of content on network television in a massive way. For all of its excellent production value, however, it’s also undisputable that it has the permanent look and feel of a TV movie – leaving it to not age terribly well in the HD age.

Stephen King’s script is a phenomenal piece of work. He was concerned about compression and censorship, but The Stand miniseries is a streamlined adaptation that properly conveys the expanse and themes of the story, and gets the characters right.

As well-drawn as the protagonists and antagonists are in the script, though, there are performances that leave a lot to be desired. Gary Sinise’s Stu Redman, Miguel Ferrer’s Lloyd Henreid, Matt Frewer’s Trashcan Man, and Bill Fagerbakke’s Tom Cullen are all pitch perfect incarnations of their respective roles, but Jamey Sheridan simply doesn’t have the on screen presence required for the part of Randall Flagg, and Laura San Giacomo’s Nadine Cross is all over the map emotionally, never grounding the character in a proper and necessary way.

An ideal remake of The Stand in my mind would be done by taking the script that Stephen King wrote, put a modern polish on it, and film it with the resources that the epic deserved. That ended up definitely not being the approach taken by the new adaptation that first started its limited run streaming December 2020… but you’ll just have to wait until this chronologically ordered column hits that title for a deeper analysis (you’ll be able to find it here on CinemaBlend on December 28, 2022).

How To Watch Mick Garris’ The Stand

For reasons that aren’t immediately clear, watching Mick Garris’ The Stand isn’t the easiest endeavor – specifically if you’re aiming to watch it in HD. The first ever Blu-ray version of the film was released in 2019 and it’s a fantastic restoration that also comes with the previously mentioned commentary track, and a quick featurette. That edition is widely available, but finding a digital version is much trickier. It’s not available to stream currently on any of the major streaming services, and the only way to purchase it is on Vudu, which hosts an SD version exclusively.

Next week’s Adapting Stephen King is going to be a real treat, as it will be time to explore what stands as one of the greatest King films of all time: Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption. It will be an epic dive into a beloved movie, so look for it here on CinemaBlend on Wednesday. In the meantime, you can explore previous installments of this column by clicking through the banners below!

Across his accolades-filled career, Stephen King has written more novels, short stories and non-fiction works than most authors could even dream of, and a sizeable majority of those creations have been expanded and adapted into full-length TV shows and movies. But there are indeed the rare tales that somehow haven't yet been expanded and brought to life (or death) in live-action, and one of those exceptions happens to be in King's shortlist of favorite stories from within his own bibliography.

No stranger to sharing his praise for other fictional works, Stephen King appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to promote the release of his brand new novel Billy Summers, and when the talk show host asked him to deliver a Top 5 rundown of his favorite original creations, the King of Horror's first answer is the piece in question, the Skeleton Crew short story "Survivor Type." Here's the spoilery way King explained it:

Stephen Colbert egged on those latter comments, laughing at the thought of a self-cannibalizing man being a fun romp for all ages. And the truth of the matter is that the rather extreme subject matter and reveal within "Survivor Type," combined with the story's briefness, probably make it a harder sell when it comes to stretching the story out for an episodic format. Granted, Adrien Brody's new show Chapelwaite is based on the Night Shift short story "Jerusalem's Lot," the largely unrelated precursor to the classic vampire novel 'Salem's Lot. And the same collection's story "Children of the Corn" shares its name with a mind-blowing ELEVEN films, though almost all of them share only the loosest connections with the source material.

Now, to be fair, there has been a limited and rather unique adaptation of "Survivor Type," though it doesn't technically qualify as a "TV show" or "film" for the purposes of this argument. The lip-smacking story was turned into an animated segment and served as half of the 2020 holiday special for the Shudder anthology series Creepshow. The segment, which marked Kiefer Sutherland's first Stephen King project since Stand By Me, was originally meant to be adapted as a live-action segment, but it didn't happen. (Also note that there have been a handful of short film adaptations of "Survivor Type," but nothing very high-profile.

When it comes to the rest of his Top 5, here's what Stephen King had to say:

Stephen King's love for the deeply personal novel Lisey's Story is such that it's the one adaptation of his books that he personally spearheaded for TV. (As opposed to directing Maximum Overdrive based on his short story "Trucks," or penning the original teleplay for the TV movie Storm of the Century.) And I can't imagine there's a horror fan, or King fan in particular, out there that hasn't yet watched Misery, Stand By Me, and The Stand, which was adapted into both a 1990 TV miniseries and a 2020 streaming series.

Check out the Late Show segment below!

Fans can get invested in an all-new Stephen King tale now that Billy Summers finally released on August 3. After you're done with that, be sure to check out Chapelwaite and all the other shows heading to the 2021 Fall TV schedule.

Who says the written word is dead? The world's younger generations definitely still have book-lovers among them, and one particular 13-year-old Stephen King fan made a pretty cool craft to hold their office supplies while paying homage to some of their favorite horror novels. The nifty creation was shared by Behind Her Eyes author Sarah Pinborough, who got the attention of the King of Horror himself on social media, and King totally gave it a stamp of approval.

Sarah Pinborough seems pretty proud of what her friend's child created, even though she humorously called the kid out in the tweet below for not including any of Pinborough's own books among those in the faux lineup. That’s okay though, because the kid definitely has good taste otherwise, showcasing novels by both Stephen King and his similarly haunting son Joe Hill, not to mention the latter's comic book series Locke & Key, which inspired the Netflix series. King shared the supply-holding craft himself on Twitter, saying:

Stephen King is, well, basically the king of both horror and novel adaptations, among other things. There have been dozens upon dozens of film and TV adaptations made based on his novels and stories, whether he likes them all or not. His son, although not nearly as renowned, has had a few adaptations based on his novels as well; Netflix’s Locke & Key (which we still have plenty of questions about) as well as the 2013 film Horns are popular adaptations of his, with the listed NOS4A2 having served as an AMC series for two seasons.

Even though the creator of the very cool craft doesn’t include Sarah Pinborough's twist-heavy works - to be fair, maybe the teen has a few other crafts of this variety dedicated to different authors that may or may not be friends with their parents - Pinborough also has a buzzy Netflix adaptation under her belt as well, with Behind Her Eyes taking over viewers' brains earlier this year, with the miniseries spawning many wild theories in its aftermath.

Stephen King and Sarah Pinborough fans, for the most part, are loving the 13-year-old’s craft. The comments on both the original post and King’s retweet are full of fans with positive words. Some commenters want one for themselves, while others are commending the young creator for the advanced books they are reading. There are only a handful of negative comments to be found, and they mostly focus on the adult content in the books being too mature for someone so young, while thankfully not necessarily attacking the art itself - but there’s always going to be at least some naysayers with anything!

Seeing as there are well over 100 longform publications put out between the King family members, it’s very doubtful this 13-year-old has read through them all already. Even so, it’s pretty cool that someone so young has found a love of reading that so many others have built up over the years, and even inspired some creativity for like-minded readers and King/Hill fans.

Maybe the teen creator will even pick up a copy of Behind Her Eyes, you know, since the author got them on flipping Stephen King's radar like that. Although not yet announced, a season 2 of Behind Her Eyes could certainly happen in some baffling capacity, seeing as Season 1 ended in a pretty hefty mind-thumper of a cliffhanger, but there’s plenty of time to catch up on some Sarah Pinborough reading in the meantime!

When a filmmaker really clicks with Stephen King’s material, it’s not terribly uncommon for them to go back to that well a second or even a third time. Lewis Teague made both Cujo and Cat’s Eye; George A. Romero teamed up with the author on Creepshow and The Dark Half; and most recently Mike Flanagan double-dipped with Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep. With this in mind, it’s easy to understand that though writer/producer Benjamin Cavell only just recently went through the experience of bringing The Stand into live-action, he has already put thought into another adaptation that he would love to make. Unfortunately, there’s a pretty big snag involved.

With all nine episodes of The Stand now streaming on Paramount+, I had the pleasure of doing a deep dive into the miniseries with Cavell earlier this month (stay tuned for more on that front), and at the very end of our conversation the subject turned to the future. We discussed not only the possibility of seeing more Alexander Skarsgard’s Randall Flagg in other projects, but also his long held dream of making a new version of the 1982 novel The Running Man (which Stephen King published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman). The problem? He’s not the only one who has had that thought. Said the filmmaker,

The project to which Benjamin Cavell is referring was announced back in mid-February. It was revealed that Baby Driver writer/director Edgar Wright is now attached to make a new feature film adaptation of The Running Man that will hone much closer to the original source material than the 1987 movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger (which took a whole lot of liberties with the book). It’s still in early stages, but even still the project’s active development is a roadblock that would prevent Cavell from getting to make his own take.

In the Stephen King novel, Ben Richards is a protagonist in a dystopian future who has been driven to desperation after losing his job – needing money so that he can buy medicine for his sick and dying child. With no other option, he makes the decision to volunteer for the Games Network: an arm of the government that creates and airs propaganda-filled reality competitions. The most popular show is The Running Man, which sees a contestant sent out into the world and essentially hunted for sport, with the idea being that the longer the person can survive, the more money they can win. Richards becomes the latest contender on the program, but while evading capture and death uncovers secrets about the workings of society that he aims to expose.

For what it’s worth, Benjamin Cavell’s version of The Running Man would be very different than Edgar Wright’s, and it starts with one word: medium. While Wright is working on a feature film adaptation, Cavell comes from the world of television (his past credits including Justified and Homeland), and his vision for the material is on the small screen – which certainly is fitting when you consider the subject matter. He continued,

Edgar Wright’s version of The Running Man clearly has a head start/the advantage at this point in time, but one must never forget that Hollywood is a land of ever-changing tides. There are countless Stephen King adaptations that have gone into development only to go absolutely nowhere, and while that’s most definitely not the future that I’m hoping to see for Wright’s project (I’m hoping for the exact opposite), one never really knows how things may work out.

For now, Edgar Wright’s version is moving forward (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World’s Michael Bacall is co-writing the script), and we can all enjoy Benjamin Cavell’s The Stand miniseries streaming on Paramount+. To learn about all of the other Stephen King adaptations that are currently in the works – including the imminent Lisey’s Story on Apple TV+ and Chapelwaite on Epix – be sure to check out our Upcoming Stephen King Movies And TV guide.

As The Stand miniseries unfolded across nine episodes from the end of last year into the early weeks of 2021, one thing became very clear: Alexander Skarsgard is a tremendous Randall Flagg. Much like how his brother, Bill Skarsgard, perfectly embodied Pennywise The Dancing Clown in Andy Muschietti’s IT, the actor brought the powerful antagonist to life with the precise palpable charisma and disturbing sense of danger that the character possesses in Stephen King’s novels. Unfortunately his final scene in the miniseries is the last we’ll see of Skarsgard in the role for now, as the Paramount+ exclusive was always designed to be a limited affair – but that doesn’t mean that the showrunner isn’t still holding out hope that we could see him come back someday.

I had a fantastic extended virtual chat with The Stand’s Benjamin Cavell earlier this month to talk all about his work on the Stephen King miniseries, and it was at the very end that our conversation shifted to a discussion about the future. I asked if there were any other King stories that he would be interested in adapting, and having spent much of the interview talking about Randall Flagg, Cavell answered in part about what still could be possible with the Alexander Skarsgard incarnation of the character:

Going by many names over the years, Randall Flagg has a seemingly ever-expanding reach and influence in Stephen King’s fiction. He made his debut as the essence of evil in 1978’s The Stand, and was developed afterward through the Dark Tower series and 1987’s The Eyes Of The Dragon, but his presence has been felt far beyond just those stories in King’s bibliography. And because of the nature of the multiverse and his relationship with it, it’s a character that in some ways dictates his own canon – so Alexander Skarsgard could easily reprise the role and operate in a completely different kind of story than the post-apocalypse epic.

As of right now there aren’t any concrete plans to actually make this happen, but clearly it’s something that Benjamin Cavell has thought about. It’s a door that he has no plans on closing, if not especially because of how much appreciation he had for his time collaborating with both Stephen King and Alexander Skarsgard in the making of The Stand. Said Cavell,

Admittedly this is a cool idea that works better theoretically than realistically, as the logistics of the situation are immensely complicated due to the fact that the rights to Stephen King books are spread out all over the place. It would likely require a significant undertaking for the legal wrangling to be hashed out, and probably a lot of money, but why give up hope? The Dark Tower series that was being planned by Amazon stalled out in January 2020, and Hulu’s developing version of The Eyes Of The Dragon fell apart last year as well. Like Benjamin Cavell, I’m not ready to give up on the idea of the stars aligning. While Constant Readers wait for more, we can always still enjoy the Alexander Skarsgard performance as Randall Flagg that does exist. All nine episodes of The Stand are now streaming exclusively on Paramount+ – and as you watch be sure to check out my episode-by-episode book-to-show guide.

While he isn’t quite at Stan Lee’s level, Stephen King is certainly a pro when it comes to the art of the cameo. His works have been getting turned into movies and television for decades now, and while he’s not in every single adaptation of his books, he is featured in a considerable number of them – not to mention films and shows that simply invite him on set to make an appearance. He can sometimes be a bit hard to find, as his roles are occasionally of the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it variety, but in that realm I am now here to help you out.

Delving into the author’s filmography, I’ve dug up every live-action Stephen King cameo in features and TV (you won’t find his voice-only parts on The Simpsons or Frasier here), and organized them into this handy chronological guide. Let’s take a trip through time, Constant Readers!

Knightriders – Hoagie Man (1981)

As you’ll find reading this feature, the vast majority of cameos that Stephen King makes are in movies or television shows he is associated with via either source material or direct creative involvement, but it’s funny that his first ever doesn’t fall into either of those categories. Director George A. Romero later became a frequent collaborator with King, working together on Creepshow and The Dark Half, but their seminal shared credit is Knightriders, which sees King briefly appear as a hoagie-eating audience member at a motorcycle dueling event. (Fun bonus: the woman he is sitting next to in the shot is his wife Tabitha King.)

Creepshow – Jordy Verrill (1982)

Stephen King’s appearances in movies and TV are typically limited to a single scene, but in one segment of Creepshow he is literally the star of the show. King plays the titular lead in "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill," which sees him as a backwoods hillbilly who gets infected by a rapidly-growing, plant-like virus that he catches while investigating a meteorite crash site.

Maximum Overdrive – Man At Bank ATM (1986)

Maximum Overdrive remains the only thing that Stephen King ever directed, but he certainly made the most of it by also giving himself a fun cameo. King actually says what is the first line of dialogue of the movie, complaining when the ATM at his local bank starts calling him an “asshole” – a set up for all of the mechanical mayhem the film eventually unfurls.

Creepshow 2 – Truck Driver (1987)

Bit of trivia for you: Creepshow 2 marks the only time Stephen King has been in a sequel to one of his own movies. The author shows up in the segment titled “The Hitch-hiker,” appearing shortly after Lois Chiles’ Annie Lansing accidentally hits the eponymous character with her car and flees. King plays a truck driver who comes across the scene of the bloody crime, but he’s hardly affected by it, bluntly commenting that it’s a thing that happens all the time.

Pet Sematary – Minister (1989)

Between books like Carrie, Desperation, Revival, The Stand, and more, Stephen King has demonstrated a very complicated relationship with religion throughout his career, and that only serves to make his cameo in Pet Sematary that much more notable. His role is brief, appearing as a minister at the funeral for Susan Blommaert's Missy Dandridge, but the sight of him wearing those robes and holding that bible sticks in your mind.

Golden Years – Bus Driver (1991)

It was in 1991 that Stephen King made his small screen acting debut, playing a bus driver in the fifth episode (“Second Chance”) of the first TV series he created, Golden Years. It’s a very brief role, featured in a scene where fugitive Harlan Williams (Keith Szarabajka) is trying to keep his wife and daughter (Frances Sternhagen, Felicity Huffman) safe by sending them on a trip to Chicago. He has a bit of a mouth on him, complaining about picking up “side of the roaders,” but he gets put in his place with a harsh stare from Huffman.

Sleepwalkers – Cemetery Caretaker (1992)

This is a fun one, because the cameo by Stephen King in Sleepwalkers is really a cameo-palooza. The author appears in one scene as a cemetery caretaker who is worried about being seen as liable for an assault that has been committed on his property, and not only is it a funny performance, but the two characters he bothers with his grousing are played by horror directors John Landis (An American Werewolf In London) and Clive Barker (Hellraiser).

The Stand – Teddy Weizak (1994)

The original miniseries adaptation of The Stand marks another instance where King plays a legitimate character instead of just making a cameo – but it’s still not that big of a part. As Teddy Weizak, he’s the one who ends up transporting Laura San Giacomo's Nadine Cross to the Boulder Free Zone, though it is noteworthy that he doesn’t suffer the same fate as Teddy in the Stephen King book (who dies in the explosion created by Nadine and Harold Lauder).

The Langoliers – Tom Holby (1995)

Throughout The Langoliers, Bronson Pinchot's Craig Toomy is constantly ranting and raving about his need to get to Boston so that he can meet with his business associates – and while he never actually makes it to that meeting, we do learn through a hallucination that his boss has more than a passing resemblance to one of the greatest horror writers of all time. It’s not a big part, as Toomy’s vision of Tom Holby is quickly replaced by the character’s domineering, abusive father, but you have to love that intense smile on Stephen King’s face.

Thinner – Pharmacist (1996)

Director Tom Holland didn’t waste much time between Stephen King adaptations in the mid-90s, going from making the Langoliers miniseries right into making the movie Thinner, and the filmmaker brought the author into both productions. In the 1996 film, King appears as a pharmacist named Jonathan Bangor, whom Michael Constantine's Tadzu Lempke goes to so that he can get ointment for a lesion on his nose.

The Shining – Gage Creed (1997)

While he may share the name of the villain he created in Pet Sematary, Stephen King’s Gage Creed in Mick Garris’ The Shining miniseries is not actually an evil two-year-old who is brought back from the dead. Instead, that’s just a cute Easter egg, as King instead plays a ghostly conductor leading the orchestra during a party at the Overlook Hotel that Steven Weber’s Jack Torrance wanders through during his descent into madness.

Storm Of The Century – Lawyer In Ad (1999)

Stephen King recently called Storm Of The Century his personal favorite among all of the small screen works he has worked on/been associated with over the course of his career, and it also happens to feature one of his odder cameos. He is featured as a lawyer in a commercial that is playing on television, but what makes it particularly weird is that the unit playing the ad in the scene was previously smashed by a basketball. It’s bizarre, but it’s also noteworthy that it’s not the only King-related project where the ad has been featured…

Rose Red – Pizza Delivery Guy (2002)

It’s always nice to have a calm before a storm in a horror story, and that’s something that Stephen King directly facilitates in the first half of the miniseries Rose Red. As the characters assemble in the titular haunted mansion, King shows up with the classic party starter: a few pizza pies and two six-packs of soda. (He's also featured in the faux documentary that preceded the release of the TV miniseries, titled Unlocking Rose Red: The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer, though it's pretty easy to tell that his appearance is just repurposed interview footage)

Kingdom Hospital – Johnny B. Goode/Lawyer In Ad (2004)

There is a running gag throughout Kingdom Hospital Season 1 that finds Bruce Davison's Dr. Stegman frustrated that he can never find the titular institution’s head of maintenance – the mysterious Johnny B. Goode (named after the Chuck Berry song). It’s in the finale that the character is finally revealed, played by Stephen King, and his appearance becomes a great bit that only enhances Stegman’s exponentially growing frustration. (As a bonus, the scene is also preceded by the lawyer ad from Storm Of The Century, as both projects were directed by Craig R. Baxley).

Fever Pitch – Himself (2005)

Given that Stephen King is a lifelong Boston Red Sox, it’s only right that he has a role in the romantic comedy that uses the team’s 2004 World Championship victory as a backdrop. The author doesn’t actually have a role in the movie, as he just featured as himself throwing out a first pitch at Fenway Park, but it counts!

Sons Of Anarchy – Bachman (2010)

Playing a character with a name inspired by his famous alter-ego, Stephen King appears in the third episode of the third season of Sons Of Anarchy, titled “Caregiver.” Appearing late in the story, he is introduced as a “cleaner” who has skills when it comes to disposing of a dead body. Unlike Winston Wolf from Pulp Fiction, Bachman is a total creep, and King delivers a great performance.

Under The Dome – Diner Patron (2014)

Stephen King recognizes that Under The Dome went “off the rails” as it was working to expand on the author’s original text, but King’s cameo has the fortunate timing of preceding the messiness. You can spot him in the Season 2 premiere of the series, the episode titled “Heads Will Roll,” where he is featured as a diner patron who requests a cup of coffee from Britt Robertson's Angie McAlister.

Mr. Mercedes – Line Cook (2017)

Clearly most Stephen King cameos have been featured for comedic effect, but his appearance in the sixth episode of Mr. Mercedes’ first season, “People In The Rain,” is all about contributing to the horror. The scene in question features Harry Treadaway's Brady Hartsfield having a violent fantasy while at a business lunch, imagining that he kills everyone in the restaurant where he is eating, and one of his victims is revealed to be a familiar-looking line cook murdered while serving a salad.

IT Chapter Two – Shopkeeper (2019)

Finally we have the most recent Stephen King appearance/cameo, and it also happens to be one of his best. Derry, Maine is a place with no shortage of weirdos, and the author plays a great one in IT Chapter Two, where he is featured as the proprietor of the Second Hand Rose pawn shop. When James McAvoy’s Bill Denbrough comes in after seeing his old bicycle, Silver, in the window, King’s character does nothing but give the famous writer grief – first by hiking up the price of the bike, and then rejecting an autograph by complaining that he doesn’t like the ending of one of Denbrough’s books.

That marks all of the author’s live-action appearances to date, but with so many upcoming Stephen King movies and TV shows, it’s not hard to imagine that this list will continue to grow in the not-too-distant future.

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With every new streaming platform, there are several great dramas for people to turn to when they want to spice up their lives with the problems of fictional characters. Paramount+ is no stranger to that, even though it’s sort of new to the scene. Already, it sports awesome shows, with some of the best dramas out there. While you wait for your new shows to premiere from the 2021 TV schedule, streaming is the way to go.

We have shows that have been going on for what feels like forever, such as NCIS and Star Trek, and others that still have dedicated fans, like Blue Bloods and The Good Wife. No matter what you’re into, Paramount+ is sure to have some sort of drama for you to wrap your head around. These are some of the best that the streaming service has to offer.

NCIS Shows

If you haven’t heard of NCIS at this point, I don’t know what rock you’ve been hiding under.

NCIS is one of the quintessential cop dramas out there. The phrase stands for Naval Criminal Investigation Service, and the series has been going on for years, since 2003.

Because of the popularity of this military and police procedural show, there have been a couple of spinoffs in this franchise that have also been put onto Paramount+ for your viewing, including NCIS: New Orleans and NCIS: Los Angeles. For all you procedural fans, this is most certainly the one for you.

Stream the NCIS franchise on Paramount+ here.

All Rise

Moving onto a more recent entry in this list, All Rise follows the stories, cases, and personal lives of a judge, a persecutor, and a public defender in the beautiful world of Los Angeles, and all the crime that comes along with it.

Obviously, if you’re already a fan of legal shows like Your Honor and Better Call Saul, this drama will be right up your alley. Even if you’ve never given series like this a chance, I’d say keep an eye out for this show. It’s an intriguing look at the legal system, which does a great of of illuminating and entertaining.

Stream All Rise on Paramount+ here.

The Good Wife

Another legal and political drama, The Good Wife, kept a steady reputation as one of the best shows on TV for seven seasons. Produced by Ridley Scott, this show covers the story of Alicia Florrick, the wife of Cook County State’s Attorney, who returns to her career in law after her husband is found guilty of a public sex and political corruption scandal.

The show received critical acclaim and was nominated for multiple Primetime Emmy Awards for how fantastic it was. Sometimes shows like this need to be viewed to really grab you, and once you start that first episode, it’s like a drug. You’ll find yourself rooting for Alicia in ways that you never thought you would – truly worth the time to view.

Stream The Good Wife on Paramount+ here.

Clarice

Think of one of the best films you’ve ever seen – did you think of The Silence of the Lambs? Because I did, and that’s exactly what Clarice is based on. We return to the world of Clarice Starling a year after the events of Silence of the Lambs, as we dive deep into the personal, untold story of the detective.

This series has everything from the movie that you loved and more, with that same psychological aspect that made Silence of the Lambs so intriguing in the first place. Along with that, you’ll get some prime hunting down of other serial killers and sexual predators, in a high-stakes world all around Washington D.C. If you loved the original, you’re sure to love the show as well.

Stream Clarice on Paramount+ here.

Star Trek Shows

Alright, there are far too many to tell you the individual plot of each Star Trek show, but know that there are so many for you to explore. The Star Trek franchise – which has been around since the 1960’s – is all about going “boldly where no man has gone before,” through the channel of space and (sometimes) time. Trust me, there are several stories which have been told throughout the years.

From the Star Trek franchise, you could watch the original Star Trek, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Discovery and so much more. While the series is rooted in science-fiction, there is still plenty of drama for you to enjoy. With each of the new shows that this franchise has turned out over the years, you’ll have entertainment for months.

Stream the Star Trek franchise on Paramount+ here.

The Equalizer

Moving onto another show based on a movie, The Equalizer is a brand-new TV series inspired by the original series of the same name from the 1980s. The show, now starring the fabulous Queen Latifah, tells the story of a vigilante who wants to help with social justice and pursues cases where the people aren’t helped by the law – which is where the “equalizer” steps in to help them out.

After the success of the series (and films starring Denzel Washington), it was only a matter of time before they decided to reboot the idea, and Queen Latifah holds up in the main role, along with several other shining costars alongside her. The crime-drama has only has a few episodes so far, so it’s easy to catch up, and who doesn’t love a good vigilante story?

Stream The Equalizer on Paramount+ here.

Blue Bloods

Blue Bloods focuses on the Reagan family, a group of individuals who largely work in law enforcement. The father is the New York City Police Commissioner, followed by family members that play other pivotal roles in the daily ongoings of the NYC Police Department.

With eleven seasons to binge, there’s plenty of you to enjoy on this popular cop show. Whether you’re a city dweller or someone who’s really into the law, there are parts of this show that will satisfy any viewer. Tom Selleck, Donnie Wahlberg, and several others star in this popular show, so there’s also plenty of talent to watch during the long-running series.

Stream Blue Bloods on Paramount+ here.

Twin Peaks

This is one of my all-time favorite dramas, and it's been popular for such a long time that it’s clear others feel the same way. Twin Peaks, while short-lived, has a cult following for a reason. The series tells the tale of a murder investigation of a homecoming queen, in the fictional town of Twin Peaks, Washington.

While it sounds like just some normal everyday crime show, there are so many elements to Twin Peaks that stand out. For example, every episode is a standard day in the show, so each season only chronicles a month – therefore, as the viewer, you really get to dive deep into these investigations and see all of the horror, mystery, and killers that appear during these cases. It’s super interesting, extremely entertaining, and worth the watch for any crime fan, even if it's a short series.

Stream Twin Peaks on Paramount+ here.

Madam Secretary

Back to the political spectrum, we take a look at a role that isn’t usually covered that often from the White House in scripted TV – the secretary of the United States. Madam Secretary is the story of a secretary of state, and the internal struggles that she has while trying to drive diplomacy, and the politics of not just the country, but the office as well.

I know that there are so many political shows out there, but this was is super complex. It really digs deep into this position and the troubles that anyone in the White House can face. I feel like in the last couple of years, we’ve all had our fair share of politics, but for a show that was around for six seasons, it’s clear they must have been doing something right. The character development is great, the stories interesting, and the politics aren’t too hard to understand for someone who’s new to shows like this.

Stream Madam Secretary on Paramount+ here.

The Stand

Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, The Stand is basically what we’re living right now – through a pandemic.

Nah, I’m just joking, but that is a main plot-point of this miniseries. In this show, we see the beginning of a pandemic that is a result of a mishap in a military biological research station – this, in turn, leads to the people who are left fighting a true battle of good against evil.

With this great show, we see awesome actors like James Marsden and Odessa Young take the lead, really providing us with a rich story – I mean, it’s Stephen King, the same guy who wrote The Shining. We all know that this story is going to be great. There’s no better time than now to watch it.

Stream The Stand on Paramount+ here.

The Twilight Zone

While the new Twilight Zone that Jordan Peele hosts is fun and all, there’s nothing that can quite compare to the original The Twilight Zone from the ’60s. The Twilight Zone is an anthology, often dealing with strange and unusual events and the people who get caught up in those events.

While the show can lean a little bit more into the horror and mystery aspect, the episodes always end with some sort of lesson being taught. Even though some of the issues can be a bit dated (this show did debut in 1959), many of the stories are still mysterious enough to be thoroughly entertaining.

Stream The Twilight Zone on Paramount+ here.

Under The Dome

Another Stephen King adaption here, Under The Dome, tells the story of a small town which is suddenly trapped under a glass dome. No one knows why, but it’s up to the townspeople to figure out exactly how to get out – and why it might have happened to them in the first place.

I know that this sounds a little bit like the plot of The Simpsons Movie, but I promise you that the story of Under The Dome is much more fleshed out and entertaining – and a lot less comical. This is the epitome of what a drama should be, with a nice science-fiction twist.

Stream Under the Dome on Paramount+ here.

Jeez. I’m already biting my nails imagining the stress I would feel watching all these dramas – but, I suppose that’s the fun part about it. You can sit on the couch and view it all on Paramount+, without having to deal with any of the consequences that the characters did.

In the seventh and eighth episodes of CBS All Access' The Stand, readers of the original Stephen King book likely spotted some key differences in the treatment of Nadine Cross – played by Amber Heard. Specifically, in the text the character winds up going insane and all but comatose after she has sex with the demonic Randall Flagg, but that's not how things play out for her on the show. Sure, she undergoes some massive physical changes, as her pale skin, gaunt features, and white hair make her appear practically dead by the time she gets to New Vegas, but her faith in Flagg holds firm, and up until the end she is excited to be bearing his child.

It's a curious deviation from the text, and showrunner Benjamin Cavell recently broke down why it was that he made the alteration. Asked about it during a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the filmmaker explained that he wanted to use the end of Nadine's arc as a fuller illustration of her cult-like mentality following The Dark Man, which couldn't even be broken by seeing Jovan Adepo's Larry Underwood handcuffed to a stove and being prepped for execution. Cavell explained,

In the adaptation of The Stand it's established that Nadine Cross was first contacted by Randall Flagg when she was a young girl living in an orphanage shortly after the death of her parents. This is another change from the book, as Stephen King's text didn't see The Walking Dude's influence start until Nadine's teenage years, but what the change adds on the show is establishing that Flagg has had his claws in her for even longer. So even though she sees his horrific true form when he takes her virginity, her brain is able to move past it and only imagine their bright future together (illustrated with their dreamy ride to New Vegas following their time in the desert).

Of course, Nadine does eventually figure out exactly what Randall Flagg is/represents – but by then it's too late for her to be saved. It's not until she recognizes that she is preparing to give birth to a monster that she comes to terms with being nothing more than a womb to sire evil's child. In Stephen King's epic novel, Nadine goads her lover into killing her by taunting him about the members of the Boulder Free Zone making their way to Vegas, but the adaptation arguably gives her more agency as she uses the glowing stone Flagg gave her to smash a window in the hotel penthouse suite and leap out. Both stories essentially end the same way, though the CBS All Access version does rub some extra salt in the wound by having the scene where Nadine's severed head is presented to Larry on a platter.

From an acting standpoint, it's certainly not difficult to understand why Amber Heard would have advocated for the show taking a different direction than the book. The idea of acting catatonic versus as a fully bought-in cult member doesn't exactly seem like it would be a hard choice for a performer, and Heard does play it well in her final episodes of The Stand.

With its Stephen King-scripted finale having launched last week, The Stand miniseries is now available in its entirety on CBS All Access (which will transforming into Paramount+ in the early days of next March), and as you watch be sure to check out my set of episode-by-episode features detailing the changes that the show has made compared to Stephen King's book.

Anticipation for a new adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand was boiling for many years before the CBS All Access take really got into gear, but that excitement hit extreme new levels in August 2019. On the first day of that month, King himself announced that he had completed writing the final episode of the new miniseries, revealing while doing so that it would provide a new ending to the story beyond what’s featured in the book. Constant Readers have been desperately curious about this so-called “coda” ever since – but now the wait is over, as the finale is now available.

As teased back in December, the final episode primarily focuses on Odessa Young’s Fran Goldsmith, who doesn’t have the opportunity to partake in the stand against Randall Flagg in New Vegas due to her pregnancy. “The Circle Closes” primarily exists to allow the young woman from Maine to have her own moment of moral struggle and resilience, and gives her the opportunity via a horrible accident involving an old, abandoned well. It’s an interesting story that adds a particular extra depth to its central character, and as a way of capping off my week-to-week run of articles comparing The Stand adaptation to the book let’s do a deep dive into what happens, what it means, and overall thoughts.

What Happens In “The Circle Closes”

In its first 15 minutes, the finale of The Stand sticks close to the events that play out in the source material. While Stu Redman is still making his way back to the Boulder Free Zone from his trek to New Vegas, Fran Goldsmith gives birth to the child that she has been carrying since the start of the story. At first it looks like the baby is going to not have her mother’s immunity, as she shows very clear symptoms of Captain Trips, but she proves to be the first person on Earth who recovers from the virus.

And as though that news isn’t good enough, Stu then finally arrives home – aided by Tom Cullen and Kojak in his journey back to Colorado.

Once the first winter in Boulder is over, Fran confesses to Stu that she is homesick and wants to return to Maine and see the Atlantic Ocean again. Even without The Dark Man lingering it’s a dangerous proposition in the post-pandemic world, but Stu acquiesces and agrees that their little family should pick up its roots and head to New England. There are tearful goodbyes, and massive hugs from Tom, but the trio then leaves the Free Zone – and Stephen King’s creative juices get flowing.

Arriving in Lorton, Nebraska

On the road, the Redman/Goldsmith family decides to make a stop in a town called Lorton, Nebraska – finding a two story house with a massive cornfield in the backyard to stay in. Stu is disappointed that to find that the cupboards are barren of edible food, but Fran notes that they passed a supermarket and a drug store, and that it would be good for them to stock up on supplies, especially medicine for the baby. They make the decision to stay overnight, but what they don’t know is that they have a mysterious neighbor – namely an innocent-looking girl who seems to live among the stalks of corn.

The next day Stu takes the truck out to run errands (getting delayed on his way back due to a flat tire), and Fran stays behind looking out for her daughter and Kojak. Spotting a well in the backyard, she wonders whether or not it works, and tests the pump – assuring her dog that she is being careful. What she doesn’t account for, unfortunately, is Randall Flagg whispering in her ear and an aggressive rat taking a bite at her finger.

Fran’s quick reaction causes the wood boards supporting her over the well to snap, and she tumbles down to the bottom, hitting her head and getting knocked unconscious.

Fran Goldsmith vs. Randall Flagg

While Fran’s body lies still in her well, her mind finds her in a strange jungle face-to-face with the notorious Walkin Dude. In calm and simple terms he explains to her the bind she is in, illustrating with the help of his own magic well. The injuries she has sustained from her fall are potentially deadly, and her baby is all alone on the back porch of a strange house in Nebraska. Meanwhile, Stu is trying to jack up his car to fix his tire, and working on unstable ground that threatens the possibility of him being crushed. Flagg paints a picture of doom, but explains that he is in a healing mood.

In exchange for saving Fran’s life, her baby’s life, and sparing Stu, all she has to do is give him a kiss and occasionally allow him to possess her. It’s an offer that she initially refuses, arguing that it’s all a lie, but she he assures her that everything he’s saying is true. For a moment it looks like Fran is going to make the trade, but instead she takes a chunk out of his bottom lip with her teeth and flees.

Running away, she suddenly finds herself out of the jungle and instead in a familiar cornfield: the one at Mother Abigail’s house in Hemingford Home. Lo and behold, Fran finds the woman who called her to Boulder, Colorado sitting on her porch, and the young mother laments almost giving into Randall Flagg’s offer. Assuring her, the great representation of Good in The Stand tells Fran that she is destined to live a long life, bearing five children and ultimately 70 great-grandchildren.

Fran’s Rescue

When Stu finally arrives back at the house, he quickly finds what has happened to Fran, and is surprised to discover that he has help to save his love – namely the girl who lives in the cornfield. The man from East Texas wraps his truck’s tow cable around his waist and drops into the well while his enigmatic assistant controls the cable’s feed from the driver’s seat. When he gets down to the bottom, he is able to wake Fran up, and together they are winched back up.

With no doctor around, things seem extremely dire, but that’s only because Stu and Fran don’t know the extent of the girl’s powers. Hands are passed over Fran’s injuries and they are magically healed. The stranger whispers two words into Fran’s ear – “now stand” – and when she does the miraculous helper is gone (the ultimate impression from her presence being that she is a young Mother Abigail).

One week later, Fran and Stu are together in Ogunquit, Maine overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Finally discussing what happened in Nebraska, Fran says that she was confronted with two sides of the world, and that “the wheel turns, the struggle continues, and the command is always the same… Be true. Stand.”

Meanwhile, in the jungle Randall Flagg is back in recruiting mode. Approaching a tribe of natives nude with the exception of his boots, he presents no threat, but a scared archer fires an arrow at him. Flagg makes the archer’s face explode, and this show of power is enough to cause the others to bow at his feet. Floating in the air, Flagg reintroduces himself as Russell Faraday, and demands worship.

With “The Circle Closes,” Stephen King has essentially written a whole new last chapter of The Stand. But while it’s certainly a natural continuation of the story and primarily built on a new mini-narrative, it’s also interesting that it still changes certain elements from the author’s original text.

How The Stand Miniseries Ending Differs From The Book

As noted, the first act in the Stand finale is mostly a straight adaptation of the events that transpire in the final pages of Stephen King’s book, but there are some alterations made that are worth spotlighting. For starters there is the fact that the audience doesn’t actually see any of Stu’s return trip to Boulder, as we are instead left to experience it as a surprise from Fran’s point of view. It’s additionally noteworthy that the gender of the baby has changed as well. As originally written, Fran gives birth do a boy that she names Peter after her father; in the CBS All Access miniseries she has a daughter that she names Abigail (obviously after Mother Abigail Freemantle).

Basically everything that happens after Fran and Stu’s decision to leave the Boulder Free Zone is new material that Stephen King has been thinking about for the last 30 years, but it should also be recognized that the final scene is also adapted material – and also features deviations from the source material. For starters, Flagg doesn’t present himself totally naked (he’s wearing jeans in addition to his boots), and he doesn’t actually need to put on a violent display in order to captivate the inhabitants of the jungle – he merely has to flash a smile. Those are really just details, though, as the larger impact remains the same.

What’s far more significant is the way in which the new coda by Stephen King fits in with the rest of the story told – especially in the context of the miniseries it concludes…

Is It A Fitting Ending For The Stand?

There has long been a living document aspect to Stephen King’s The Stand, as it’s a story that hasn’t remained the same since the book was first published on October 3, 1978. In 1990 approximately 400 pages were reintroduced to the tome, which was republished as the “Complete and Uncut Edition,” and the author himself previously adapted the material, writing the screenplay for the four-episode 1994 miniseries. As a result, the newly written coda feels like a fitting part of the epic’s ever-expanding legacy, and what’s far more important is that the extra “chapter” adds real value to the tale.

In reflection, it’s an unfortunate thing that Fran Goldsmith is such a vital figure in The Stand, and yet doesn’t have the opportunity to be an active part of the titular event due to her pregnancy. Her final arc in the book is largely defined by her concern for Stu and her fear that her baby won’t survive, and that’s rather passive material for such an important character. “The Circle Closes” primarily functions to give Fran the conflict and closure that she deserves, and its developments are faithful to her arc without feeling tacked on. If Stephen King were to write it into new versions of the novel published in the future, it would be recognized as an organic extension of what has existed for decades.

How it exists in the context of the CBS All Access miniseries is a different conversation – and that’s primarily due to the pacing of everything we’ve seen over the last nine weeks. With a hell of a lot of ground to cover, The Stand has been moving at a whip-crack pace from the very beginning – pushed in a big way by the non-linear structure in the first few episodes that abbreviated the arcs of all the main players. Up until this week the show hasn’t taken much time to slow down and really examine its characters, which is exactly what Stephen King’s coda does for Fran. In that way it feels distinct compared to the rest of the adaptation, and while that’s a bit odd, it’s not entirely a bad thing given the historical significance of the original author adding to his original work more than 40 years after its original publication.

With the miniseries now concluded, it can be said definitively that the 2020/2021 iteration of The Stand has had a lot of ups and downs – but Stephen King’s finale is a clear “up.” Not every change that has been made to the source material has been a welcomed one (I will remain forever disappointed by Trashcan Man’s severely condensed role), but what King delivers is an exciting and significant addendum that cuts to the guts and bathes in the story’s most important themes. Justice has been done to Fran Goldsmith, and it will be remembered as the best part of this adaptation.

After nearly two months of build-up, The Stand against Randall Flagg has been executed. The new CBS All Access adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand has now reached its big climax in its eighth episode, and audiences can now witness what happens with Glen Bateman, Larry Underwood, and Ray Brentner following their arrival in New Vegas. For the most part, like the rest of the series, the translation of the text is faithful, as most of the major beats are hit dead on – but also like the rest of the series, there are also a number of alterations that have been made, and it’s those differences that I am here to spotlight.

In the new episode, titled “The Stand,” we see everything from key characters experiencing different fates to new interpretations of miraculous events – and while some of the changes are understandable, others are quite mysterious. And as I’ve done with all of the episodes thus far, it’s time to dig in and explore the deviations in detail. Going in the order of how things unfold on the show, we’ll start with…

Glen, Ray, And Larry Get A “Trial”

Given that Glen Bateman, Larry Underwood, and Ray Brentner are members of the Boulder Free Zone, there is never really any doubt that Randall Flagg plans to kill them once they are captured arriving on the fringes of New Vegas – but one way in which the Stand miniseries differs from Stephen King’s book is the implementation of a kangaroo court. It’s obviously a bullshit display of “justice,” but at the very least it is more than the characters get in the novel, as they go straight from jail cells to execution. Well, two of them do, anyway…

Lloyd Isn’t Directly Ordered By Randall Flagg To Shoot Glen

Like in the book, Glen Bateman doesn’t survive long enough in the story to make it to the showy execution (quite a bit more on that to come), but what is interestingly different about the miniseries version is the origins of the orders for Lloyd Henreid to shoot him. In Stephen King’s original text, Randall Flagg personally shows up at Glen’s jail cell, and it’s there – because of the former professor’s obstinance – that The Walkin Dude demands that his right hand man kill him. With Flagg not present for the “trial” in the new adaptation, Lloyd instead gets the command from Rat-Woman and the citizens of New Vegas. As a result, there is a lingering expectation of punishment that Lloyd experiences, but the consequences never come.

Nadine Starts Going Into Labor

Staying true to the book, Nadine Cross is instantly impregnated by Randall Flagg with some kind of evil spawn following their horrific first sexual encounter, but one new addition to that mini-arc on the CBS All Access adaptation is that we actually get to see her go into labor. Rat-Woman and Lloyd Henreid set up a makeshift hospital setup in the middle of Randall Flagg’s penthouse suite, and there is a moment when you wonder if the new version of The Stand is actually going to feature the birth of The Dark Man’s child. But then…

Nadine Jumps Out The Window Instead Of Being Thrown

One key difference between Alexander Skarsgard’s Randall Flagg and the one in Stephen King’s book is that we never get to see his horrible temper overrule his interests, and here we have a perfect example. In the text, Flagg winds up making the mistake of murdering Nadine by throwing her out of his window after she goads him about the heroes being on their way from the Boulder Free Zone – not realizing until too late that in doing so he is killing his unborn child. In the Stand miniseries, the act of crashing out the paned glass is instead a choice by Nadine, who chooses death over bearing Flagg’s offspring. These moments aren’t admittedly THAT different, as the reason the pre-Captain Trips school teacher pokes at her captor is in hopes that he will kill her, but it’s a big enough change to warrant mention here.

Larry Gets A Final Moment With Nadine, Is Taunted With Her Head

As noted in last week’s book-to-show comparison, the timeline in The Stand miniseries is slightly shifted in a way that allows the arrival of Glen Bateman, Larry Underwood, and Ray Brentner in New Vegas to coincide with Nadine Cross’ limited time in the city. In the book Nadine is long dead by the time the Boulder Free Zone members arrive, but that not being the case in the adaptation means that Larry gets some final moments with the woman with whom he traveled across the country. Both their conversation in the kitchen and Larry being presented with her head post-suicide are original creations that didn’t come from Stephen King’s novel.

Larry And Ray Are Set Up To Be Drowned Instead Of Dismembered

With Glen Bateman killed during the trial, Larry Underwood and Ray Brentner are left to face down death together in front of the crowded masses of New Vegas, and while that is taken straight from Stephen King’s The Stand, it’s noteworthy that the new adaptation alters the method of execution orchestrated by Randall Flagg. The CBS All Access series sees the two members of the Boulder Free Zone placed in a pool where they are meant to slowly drown – and while that certainly is a horrible way to go, it’s actually arguably better than what they nearly experience in the book. Rather than slowly asphyxiate, the two characters are chained up to be dismembered with two flatbed trucks and towing chain. The reason for the change is unclear, especially because the end result winds up being the same.

Randall Flagg Doesn’t Know That Mother Abigail Is Dead

Here we have another mysterious-yet-intriguing change from book, and that reaction comes mostly from the fact that one wonders what it could possibly mean for the final episode of The Stand. While speaking to the citizens of New Vegas during the execution of Larry Underwood and Ray Brentner, Randall Flagg makes it clear that he is still under the impression that Mother Abigail Freemantle is still alive – despite the fact that she passed away immediately after telling Stu, Larry, Glen, and Ray to travel west. The knowledge of Mother Abigail’s death is not something that is hidden from Flagg in Stephen King’s original version, and the fact that Larry directly points out the misconception makes me wonder if it may have some kind of an impact on the finale.

The Hand Of God Appears/Operates Differently

In very broad strokes, the new adaptation of The Stand is a faithful take on Stephen King’s source material when it comes to the end of New Vegas: Trashcan Man brings the nuclear warhead directly to Randall Flagg, despite The Man In Black's wishes, and a Hand Of God forms above the public execution that winds up activating the weapon and destroying the city. There are some key details that are changed, however. For starters, the energy that winds up turning into the Hand Of God in the book is actually generated by Flagg – launched from his fingertip at followers who rebel against him (the appearance of the clouds as fingers in the adaptation is basically a substitute for this). Furthermore, the whole bit with lightning strikes killing individuals in the panicked crowd – including Lloyd Henreid and Rat-Woman – is original, as the big “finale” actually plays out very quickly once the miracle shows up.

With Episode 8 now out in the world, that means that The Stand only has its finale remaining – and excitement for it couldn’t be more intense given that it’s based on a script co-written by Stephen King himself. How will it alter the end of the original novel, and what will it add to the story? I can’t wait to find out, and will be back with my final book-to-show comparison next week shortly after “The Circle Closes” arrives on CBS All Access.

The connection between Nadine Cross and Randall Flagg is unquestionably one of the most fraught in all of Stephen King’s The Stand. While Nadine is pulled to the side of “good” in some respects, such as the fact that she was a school teacher in the pre-Captain Trips world, she also committed herself to Flagg at a young age, and has been under his thrall for the majority of her life. This mystical/horrible connection is put front-and-center in the latest episode of the CBS All Access adaptation, as “The Walk” features the Alexander Skarsgard and Amber Heard characters advancing their relationship by having sex for the first time – but those who have read the book may have registered that the chapter of the show changed some things up a bit about the consummation, alongside some other aspects of the source material.

I’ve been tracking these various deviations from Stephen King’s epic novel week-to-week here on CinemaBlend, and with “The Walk” now streaming on CBS All Access it’s time to dig into what is the seventh episode. There are some notable choices made involving characters like The Trashcan Man, Lloyd Henreid, and Mother Abigail, but we’ll start with the devilish lovers:

Sex With Randall Flagg Is What Turns Nadine’s Hair White, She Doesn’t Go Catatonic

Thanks to the sexual congress between Nadine Cross and Randall Flagg, The Stand now has one of its most disturbing moments taken straight from the book (the revelation of Flagg’s true face), but as faithful as that bit is there are a couple aspects of the moment that have changed. In Stephen King’s novel, the former school teacher’s hair actually turns white prior to intercourse with her seducer, specifically due to a psychic connection with Flagg after she plants Harold’s bomb. What’s far more significant, however, is that Nadine is conscious and still under The Walkin Dude’s thrall after they have sex. In the book, the encounter leaves her catatonic.

Trashcan Man’s Mission For The Nuke Is Condensed

In last week’s feature about “The Vigil” I pointed out how Trashcan Man’s crazy journey to Vegas was massively condensed and changed for the CBS All Access show, resulting in the character getting only about six minutes of screen time, and things don’t really improve much in “The Walk.” The character does return, following up on the mission given to him by Randall Flagg, but still the whole thing is abridged when compared to Stephen King’s book. We already knew that the show was skipping over the whole finding redemption arc for the character, with Trashy not sabotaging Vegas’ military equipment and Flagg specifically sending him to find a warhead – but still things play out much quicker in the adaptation. Watching the episode, you miss the experience watching him break into the Air Force Base and his animal-like tracking of the “big fire.”

Nadine Ostensibly Murders Harold

In Stephen King’s book, there is no doubt that there are sinister forces at play in the death of Harold Lauder. Riding his motorcycle to Vegas with Nadine Cross, something strange happens that causes him to lose control (he internally questions if it was some kind of oil slick) and the end result is him crashing and being fatally injured. Most of this sequence is maintained in the adaptation, including Harold firing a few shots at Nadine as she leaves him, but the context is vastly changed. In this version, Nadine has an active role in killing Harold, and she first gets him to speed up and then distracts him as they approach a sharp turn on the highway. Whether or not she does it because she is instructed by Randall Flagg, or just because of his harsh words following the explosion is unclear, but what remains true is that Harold wasn’t going to stay alive in Vegas for very long anyway.

Mother Abigail Dies Immediately After Delivering Her Message

The message that Mother Abigail Freemantle delivers to the members of the Boulder Free Zone Committee on her death bed in this new episode of The Stand is actually remarkably close to what she says in the book, right down to the bit about one member of the group not making the full journey to Vegas, but one notable difference in the adaptation is what happens immediately after. In Stephen King’s original version, Mother Abigail holds on for at least a little while after delivering her “commandments,” surviving until the next morning, but her candle quite literally snuffs out as soon as she’s done talking in this new take. While the show has downplayed some of the fantastical elements of the story in previous episodes (such as Tom not being hypnotized), this is actually a nice extra touch, as it suggests that Mother A was holding on just long enough to provide her message from God.

Lloyd Personally Picks Up Larry, Glen And Ray In A Limousine

This is a minor change in the grand scheme, but in its own way a smart one. In both the book and the show, Larry Underwood, Glen Bateman and Ray (nee Ralph) Brentner don’t actually make it all the way to Vegas on foot, as their path is impeded by men sent by Randall Flagg (who knew they were coming). The difference here is that it’s Lloyd Henreid doing the impeding in the adaptation, while in the source material its “a little man who looks like a CPA” named Paul Burlson. Again, it doesn’t make a ton of difference on the story, but it is an example of The Stand miniseries being a bit more economical with its characters than Stephen King. You might question why Flagg’s right hand man would be sent for such a mission instead of a flunky, but when you think about how things went wrong in the last episode with Bobby Terry and Judge Farris, it makes sense that a high ranking member of the organization would be sent for the job.

Nadine Is Still Alive To Meet Larry, Glen And Ray In Vegas

The big climactic cliffhanger that The Stand leaves audiences with this week is the sight of a very sickly and pregnant Nadine Cross greeting Larry Underwood, Glen Bateman, and Ray Brentner in New Vegas – and part of the reason why it’s such a striking moment is because it’s a wholly original interaction. Without getting into too much detail (I have to save some material for next week), Nadine doesn’t live long enough in Stephen King’s novel to welcome the trio, as she dies a full six chapters before their arrival. How will this wind up changing how things play out in the ending of the story? It’s now easily one of the most interesting things that the miniseries has going for it.

Where’s Tom Cullen?

I’m surely jumping ahead here, as there is no doubt that we will get to catch up with Tom Cullen in at least one of the two remaining episodes of The Stand, but it still caught me by surprise that the character wasn’t featured in “The Walk” at all. When we last saw him (in “The Vigil”), he was in the midst of successfully escaping from New Vegas in a truck full of bodies, and going by the book that’s followed by him on an arduous journey east on foot while Stu, Larry, Glen and Ray are on their journey west. Presumably they’ll have him eventually meet up with Stu, but if we don’t actually see any of his trip does that mean we may not get to see any of his dreams talking with Nick Andros? I expected that would be something featured in “The Walk” as a means of emotionally reckoning with Nick’s death, but it’s not there, hence the inclusion of this section.

The next episode of The Stand is a huge one – as while it may technically only be the penultimate episode, the fact that episode nine has been described as a “coda” makes the next chapter a kind of de facto finale. Appropriately titled “The Stand,” it will be going live on CBS All Access at midnight PST/3am EST, and you can count on me writing another book-to-show comparison to pair with it!

There is a ridiculous amount of ground to cover character-wise in adapting Stephen King’s The Stand, and while the new CBS All Access miniseries took a strange route with the material by making the narrative non-linear, it’s first five episodes did a solid job introducing all of the main players. Breaking up the key arcs into different chapters, the show has week-by-week dedicated time to the key protagonists (including Stu, Fran, Larry, Nick, Tom, and Mother Abigail) and key antagonists (such as Harold, Nadine, Lloyd, and Randall Flagg). Of course, there’s been one major presence missing: Donald Merwin Elbert a.k.a. The Trashcan Man.

In Stephen King’s novel, Trashy is as significant as any of the other characters mentioned, with multiple chapters dedicated to his journey through the post-apocalypse, but Ezra Miller’s portrayal of the character has been withheld from the Stand audience for weeks. That finally changed this week, as audiences were introduced to the pyromaniac/psychotic in “The Vigil” – but truth be told it was pretty underwhelming, and the simple reason is quantity. All told, Trashcan Man’s sequences equal a grand total of about six-and-a-half minutes, when in reality his is a story that should have gotten its very own dedicated episode in the limited nine-episode run.

As I detailed in the latest edition of my weekly book-to-show comparison, The Stand doesn’t precisely alter a ton of The Trashcan Man’s arc, but it does compress the hell out of it. What amounts to more than 60 pages in Stephen King’s epic is reduced to three independent scenes: Trashy blowing up oil tanks; Trashy having a vision of Randall Flagg; and Trashy meeting Flagg in person before being sent away to accomplish a mission. And while he’s not exactly singular in having some key scenes trimmed from his narrative (as that’s something that has happened to just about every main character in the series thus far), it’s certainly the most egregious case, and the most unfortunate.

It goes without saying that The Trashcan Man is vastly different than any other character in The Stand, and it’s disappointing that the specialness of his journey isn’t being recognized. Like with Lloyd and Julie, for example, he sees the post-Captain Trips world as an opportunity to explore the deepest depths of his id – but what sets him apart is his inability to function on emotionally logical and interpersonal levels due to his severe psychosis. His whole world is mechanics and fire, and his solo journey to Vegas in the book is made fascinating by his unique perspective.

Beyond the philosophy and specialness of the storytelling, Trashcan Man’s original journey also happens to be arguably the most horrifying in Stephen King’s whole book – which is saying a lot when considering some of the gruesome scenes he puts together. For starters there is the sheer destruction of his body that comes with crossing the country on foot (not to mention the injuries he sustains from his various planted explosives), but more significantly there is the time that he spends with the Coors-swilling psychopathic rapist known only as The Kid. Executive Producer Josh Boone has addressed the adaptation not featuring the latter, saying that it was cut out as a result of budget restrictions, but after seeing Trashy’s introduction one can’t help but wish that some of the project’s funds were allocated differently.

Additionally strengthening my argument here is that Ezra Miller is doing some wild stuff with the material in The Stand, and it’s a shame that there isn’t more. As I previously reported, the actor basically went full method in his portrayal of the fire-loving schizophrenic, and the result on screen is the exact right level of disturbing. He is filled to the brim with nothing but pyromania and devotion to Randall Flagg, and it makes for a fascinating performance that I would have loved to see explored alone in an uninterrupted hour-long episode. Instead, fans simply waited five weeks for his arrival only to get what feels like a glorified cameo – which just isn’t right when weighed against the significance of the character in the book.

When it was first announced that The Stand would play out as nine hour-long episodes, I very much thought that ideas like having an episode focused solely on The Trashcan Man would be on the table. After all, the miniseries adaptation made in 1994 is two-thirds the size, and actor Matt Frewer has a solid and very memorable presence as Trashy. Instead, Ezra Miller’s overall role in the show appears to actually be smaller, and that’s a rude awakening. It is possible that he will have a much more significant role to play in the next two chapters of the CBS All Access adaptation (with the finale being the coda that primarily centers on Fran), and fans of the book know that he has a massive role to play in the story’s big climax, but from a larger perspective it feels like the show has missed an amazing opportunity to do justice to one of Stephen King’s most fascinating characters.

With its sixth episode, The Stand has delivered its most climactic episode yet – a roaring boil following the simmer that was everything building up to it. We finally got our introduction to Ezra Miller as The Trashcan Man, Mother Abigail goes on her pilgrimage, the Boulder Free Zone spy plan completely falls apart, and it all ends with a big bang. “The Vigil” is the most exciting chapter that’s aired thus far – and while most of the action is taken directly from the pages of Stephen King’s book, there are some notable and interesting changes that have been made to change-up the adaptation.

Continuing my weekly habit of doing so, I’ve watched the latest episode of The Stand keeping in mind how the CBS All Access miniseries lines up with its source material, and have catalogued all of the most significant changes, alterations, and deviations. To start, let’s dig into the big introduction mentioned above…

Trashcan Man’s Story Gets Seriously Compressed; Flagg Sends Him For The Nuke

In Stephen King’s The Stand, Donald Merwin Elbert a.k.a. The Trashcan Man, is as big a character as any of the main protagonists. Full chapters are dedicated to his pyromaniac tour in a post-Captain Trips world, and his journey to Vegas is as horrifying as any of the characters’ experiences going to the Boulder Free Zone. The miniseries could have dedicated an entire episode to him alone – but instead it’s opted to shrink his arc down considerably. We do get to see him blowing up some oil tankers, and his mystical communication with Randall Flagg, but beyond that it skips over his whole journey with The Kid, and even seems to skip over the bit where Trashy sabotages New Vegas’ armaments. There is also an indication that The Dark Man is sending to specifically to retrieve a nuclear device, while in the book Trashy winds up getting the warhead as a misguided apology for the aforementioned sabotage.

Harold’s Bomb Has A Very Different Design

Stocked up with explosives taken from the controlled avalanche supplies found in the mountains, Harold Lauder gets creative with the design of his bomb in the new miniseries, making it long and narrow so that it can be hidden within the piano in Mother Abigail’s house. This is far more advanced than what we saw from Harold and Nadine Cross’ planning in the book. While the device in the adaptation’s case is transported around by the sinister duo in a poster tube, the novel’s fits within a shoebox, and that shoebox is put in a closet.

The Target Of The Attack Is A Vigil For Mother Abigail

As noted in last week’s feature, one thing that has been changed up in this version of The Stand is the timing of Mother Abigail Freemantle’s disappearance – as in the book she has disappeared even before the spies can be sent from Boulder to Vegas. By the time Harold Lauder and Nadine Cross get around to finishing their plans, Mother Abigail has been gone for quite some time, and the fact that that’s changed in this adaptation has resulted in another significant change. Because of the spiritual leader’s disappearance, Harold and Nadine make a plan to detonate their explosive during a vigil, giving the episode its name – but in the book the target is simply a normal committee meeting. They end up basically concluding the same way, but we’ll get into that more in a bit.

Mother Abigail And Randall Flagg Face Off In The Woods

In Stephen King’s original version of The Stand, Mother Abigail Freemantle’s journey through the wilderness is mostly kept a mystery. The audience is informed that her intention away from the Boulder Free Zone is to reopen communication with God, but exactly what happens to her during her time away is mostly left to the reader’s imagination. This new adaptation takes a different approach, and in doing so delivers a scene that is not found in the book: a face-to-face conversation between Mother Abigail and Randall Flagg. The end of their confrontation seems to leave the former with the upper hand, but the conclusion of the episode suggests that that may not be true (again, more on that in a bit).

Tom Escapes Vegas In A Truck Full Of Bodies

When Tom Cullen sees the full moon over Las Vegas in Stephen King’s The Stand, he registers that it means that it is time for him to return to the Boulder Free Zone – and his escape is mostly uneventful. Moving quietly, he takes a bike and makes his way out of town, and while there is a brief moment when he can feel Randall Flagg’s consciousness, it quickly fades. The CBS All Access miniseries, however, takes as much more dramatic approach. With Episode 4 sending Tom to Vegas without being hypnotized, and Episode 5 featuring Dayna passing him a note that says, “Run,” the character is given a lot more agency to make his own escape in Episode 6, and the way he does so is most definitely gruesome and gross, but ultimately effective.

Fran Finds The Bomb In Harold’s Basement

The Stand miniseries has been peppered with all varieties of references to The Shining (you may have noticed that Harold Lauder’s typewriter had a $217 price tag, and recognized a particular carpet pattern in Randall Flagg’s Vegas hotel), but “The Vigil” features the most significant Easter egg we’ve seen thus far: Fran Goldsmith looking through Harold’s manifesto a la Wendy Torrance finding the full ream of paper repeating the phrase “All Work And No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy.” What’s kind of funny is that just as that scene in Stanley Kubrick’s movie was an invention not featured in Stephen King’s book, so is Fran’s discovery. While Fran does break into Harold’s house in the original text, she doesn’t actually find anything substantial. What we see in the new version is a smart, dramatic add.

Joe Finds Mother Abigail

Getting back to the end of the episode and the fate of Mother Abigail, the last big alteration we’ll point to is the sequence with Joe instinctively knowing where to go to find Mother Abigail Freemantle after hearing her voice in his head. One thing that has remained consistent about the show in adapting the book is Joe’s close relationship with the Boulder Free Zone founder, but that’s entirely invention for this new version. As far as the end of the episode goes, the only thing that really 100% lines up is that people hearing the news about Mother Abigail and celebrating draws them away from the bomb – reducing the total number of casualties.

Tensions are going to be as high as ever in the post-apocalyptic world of The Stand going into next week’s episode, which is titled “The Walk,” and you can be sure that I’ll be back once again comparing how events play out compared to the Stephen King’ novel. Episode 7 will drop on CBS All Access January 28 at midnight PST, and my latest feature will be available at the same time here on CinemaBlend!

Stephen King has over 80 TV and film credits attached to his name. CBS All Access' The Stand is just one of the more recent adaptations of a King novel with plenty of room for more to follow. King has some strong opinions on some of the adaptations, with Stanley Kubrick's The Shining being one iconic film that he absolutely hated. Fortunately for those involved in the new version of King’s epic The Stand, he seems to be thrilled with how it’s come along so far. With only 5 episodes of the limited series released at the time of this writing, King has some great words for the cast and everyone involved in the creation of the show.

Following the release of the fifth episode of the limited series, Stephen King took to his Twitter to express his approval of how the series is going. In his tweet, King gives a shoutout to the actors who have worked on it and have connections to past adaptations of his novels, among other actors who play key roles in The Stand. In King’s own words:

While this is probably a huge morale boost, King doesn't stop there in his praises. He actually posts a string of tweets that give kudos to other actors and aspects the show. Whoopi Goldberh got her own tweet, as she plays an outstanding Mother Abigail. Amber Heard, Jovan Adepo, and Henry Zaga also received praise along with, “EVERYONE,” for their roles as major characters. King is even thrilled with the music choice for the series, tweeting that “Don’t Fear The Reaper” being the pick for the recent credits was, like everything else, “so good."

That’s gotta mean a lot, as praises from King don’t come easy, especially when it comes to The Stand. CBS All Access' show is far from the first adaptation of Stephen King’s corresponding novel, and it is one that King has a history of holding close to his chest, not trusting many to do it justice. The Stand is King’s epic, his Iliad or Odyssey, and it has to be an incredibly high honor for the cast and crew to see him sing praises for a rendition of his largest work.

The most recent adaptation of The Stand is currently able to be streamed on CBS All Access, with the sixth episode set to release on this Thursday, January 21st. The series is set to run for nine episodes in total.

While you’re waiting check out our list of other Stephen King adaptations available on streaming. CinemaBlend will continue to keep you updated on The Stand and future Stephen King adaptations.

The first four episodes of CBS All Access’ The Stand feature multiple references to what Randall Flagg is cooking up in Las Vegas, with the message from the crucified man in “Blank Page” driving home the scariness of the operation – but exactly what has been going on in the desert city has been left to audiences’ imaginations. Now the curtain has been pulled back. While still featuring action in the Boulder Free Zone, “Fear and Loathing in New Vegas” (a spin on the title of the famed Hunter S. Thompson book) has revealed what life is like Flagg’s domain, and it’s pretty damn hellish.

The events that transpire there also don’t entirely line up with what Stephen King originally wrote in his epic novel – which brings us to the operation of this weekly feature. Just like all of the previous episodes, there are multiple ways in which “Fear and Loathing in New Vegas” noticeably deviates from the original text, and here I’ll go through them in order of how they play out.

Mother Abigail Is Pissed About The Spies Being Sent

The big final note in this week’s episode of The Stand is Ray Brentner discovering that Mother Abigail Freemantle has gone missing, and while this by itself is an element of the story directly adapted from the book, what’s different about it is its timing. Specifically, Mother Abigail leaves the Boulder Free Zone before the committee can even convene about the idea of sending spies to Randall Flagg’s Las Vegas – which was something that was featured in “The House Of The Dead” a.k.a. episode four. The result of this is that the spiritual leader of the post-apocalyptic community has an in-the-moment reaction to the decision, and it most definitely pisses her off.

Dayna Doesn’t Have To Sleep With Lloyd

If we’re picking teams after the apocalypse, Dayna Jergens is most definitely somebody I want on my side. Her story in The Stand features her going through absolute hell, but through it all is a perfect trooper who does everything in her power for the side of good. She is, however, saved one serious indignity in the miniseries compared to the book: she doesn’t have to sleep with Lloyd Henreid. In the source material she begins a sexual relationship with Randall Flagg’s second-in-command with the sole intention of using him to get to The Walking Dude, and she is totally prepared to do the same deed in the adaptation, but Julie Lawry winds up saving her the displeasure by bringing up Flagg during foreplay – which proves to be an excellent boner killer for Lloyd.

Larry Isn’t In Another Relationship When Nadine Begs Him To Take Her Virginity

I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to address the change in the relationship between Larry Underwood and Nadine Cross from Stephen King’s The Stand, and this seems as good a time as any. There is a point in the book as the two characters cross America together that it seems they may end up as a couple, but not only does Randall Flagg run interference on that idea, but there is also another woman that Larry meets as their group of survivors grows. That character, Lucy Swan, has been cut out of the CBS All Access miniseries, and it’s interesting to note that it makes Larry’s rejection of Nadine’s advances all about personal growth instead of both that and a committed relationship.

Dayna Gets A Note To Tom

Thanks to the Boulder Free Zone Committee underestimating the abilities of Randall Flagg, the plan to send spies into Las Vegas really doesn’t go all that well – and that’s a shared element between both The Stand miniseries and book. What doesn’t quite go down the same in the two versions of the story is the interaction between two of the three infiltrators. Dayna does see Tom Cullen in the original text, but it’s really not until she is very close to dying (more on that in a moment) that she actually puts together why she recognizes him.

Randall Flagg Performs A Different Kind Of Magic

Here we have another bit of detail swapping with the main structure remains the same. Both the book and the CBS All Access show have a moment where Dayna gets the courage to try and assassinate Randall Flagg, but they don’t really go down the same way. For starters there is the weapon of choice. In the adaptation she slips a pair of scissors into her meeting with Randall Flagg, but in the novel she wields a knife loaded in a spring-loaded mechanism on her wrist. Then there is the actual execution. For a moment in the new version it seems like Dayna has possibly taken out the evil force by stabbing The Dark Man in the neck, but it turns out to be an act. Stephen King’s take is a touch weirder: Flagg transforms her knife into a banana.

Dayna Opts For A Different Method Of Suicide

There is a whole lot of awful death featured in all versions of The Stand, but the death of Dayna Jergens is certainly one of the grizzliest. And while her suicide in this new adaptation is definitely horrible, as she uses a broken bottle to stab her own throat, the book is sincerely worse. The character comes to the same understanding in Stephen King’s version that she has to die before the information about Tom Cullen is tortured out of her by Randall Flagg, but her move is to try and smash through one of the hotel suite’s windows. It doesn’t go quite as planned, as she does successfully break through the glass, but only makes it halfway due to the sturdiness of the pane. Flagg begins to drag her back in, but she kills herself by violently twisting her neck and driving an imbedded shard deeper into her neck.

Harold Has Full Blown Security System

One thing that was always going to demand change in this new adaptation of The Stand is the massive technology gap that exists between our modern world and 1978 – the year that the book was originally published. Turning on the electricity (as we saw depicted in “The House Of The Dead”) means not just functioning lightbulbs and radios, but personal computers (albeit sans internet) and home video equipment (R.I.P. Teddy Weizak). It also means booting up advanced home security systems, which we learn in this episode Harold Lauder has set up in his house. At first you think Fran Goldsmith’s plan is screwed just because Harold notices the chess piece that Larry Underwood knocked over, but the situation is then shown to be far worse than that.

I’ll be back next week with another examination of how the new miniseries lines up with the book, and it should be an experience that requires a seatbelt. Episode 6, titled “The Vigil,” will feature the debut of Ezra Miller as everyone’s favorite delusional pyromaniac, Donald Merwin Elbert, better known as The Trashcan Man. Stay tuned for my full breakdown, as well as all other manners of The Stand and Stephen King news and updates here on CinemaBlend!

Any actor in Hollywood who has been around for any length of time has been offered a role that they decided not to take in a movie that went on to become a massive hit. We've heard the stories about how Will Smith could have played Neo in The Matrix or how Eddie Murphy could have been in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. James Marsden, currently shining in the new adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand, admits there are roles that he sometimes wishes he hadn't turned down. Including a spot on the stage in Steven Soderbergh's Magic Mike.

The revelation that the former Cyclops could have been in Magic Mike came in an appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden. Marsden talked about how he was offered a role in Days of our Lives very early in his career, but decided not to do it. He seems to feel now that was still the right choice, but he's less sure about the decision to turn down Magic Mike because he gave up the chance to work with a great director. According to Marsden...

While James Marsden doesn't talk more about the role he would have had in Magic Mike, it certainly doesn't sound like it was a very important one, as the reason he decided against the role was that he thought he would eventually be cut out of the movie. If all his lines could have been cut without impacting the movie, that's certainly not a huge role. Part of him, however, still wishes he'd done it anyway, and that ending up as an extra in a G-string would have been worth it just to work with Steven Soderbergh. Marsden does say that some of his family is still very glad he did not take the role.

Magic Mike does appear to be a rare exception in James Marsden's career. Overall, he says that when he looks back at the various roles he's turned down, he's still very glad that he did so. He doesn't go into any detail on those roles. It wouldn't exactly be nice to bad mouth movies that apparently all turned out just as bad as he feared, but it Magic Mike is really the only one he got "wrong" that's a pretty solid track record. I mean, who actually thought Sonic the Hedgehog would turn out as good as it did?

With the arrival of The Stand’s fourth episode, the CBS All Access miniseries has hit an important point. All of the key protagonists have been introduced, so what’s really left is to further develop them and, because it’s a non-linear story, showcase their character-shaping moments along their individual journeys. That still leaves a lot of ground to cover from Stephen King’s original novel, and while a lot of what we see play out in “The House Of The Dead” is translated directly from the pages of the original book, there is also a fair amount of new material too.

Constant Readers who watch the episode will recognize one for one reproductions of scenes like Nadine Cross’ seduction of Harold Lauder, and the Boulder Free Zone committee discussion about sending spies to New Vegas – but with these weekly features I focus on the alterations that are made, and “The House Of The Dead” features more than a few…

The Body Crew Becomes The City Watch

It was easy to predict that certain changes in the miniseries would cascade into other inventions for the show, and here we have a good example. In the third episode, “Blank Page,” the Boulder Free Zone was shocked by the arrival of a crucified man warning of a pending attack from Randall Flagg, and the consequence of that in the fourth episode is that Mother Abigail’s followers raise their guard a bit – much further than just having Stu Redman become the community marshal, as happens in the book just as a security measure as the population continues to grow. The decision by the central committee to have the Body Crew become the City Watch is a standout one, if not especially because it directly leads to a major event that will be discussed at the end of this feature.

Confrontation With Garvey Plays Out Much Differently

The ambush pulled off by the psychotic misogynist Garvey in The Stand miniseries is definitely one the show’s most disturbing and frightening thus far, and the character, portrayed by Angus Sampson is certainly threatening all by his lonesome. That being said, the circumstances are very much scaled up in Stephen King’s book, which has Garvey not as a lone wolf, but instead a part of a whole team of murderers/rapists who have been capturing and torturing women. Making the situation even scarier is that Stu Redman and Glen Bateman don’t just show up at the right time, as they are with Fran Goldsmith and Harold Lauder when it all goes down. Both end up with semi-positive outcomes, as the good guys win and Dayna Jurgens is introduced as a bold force to be reckoned with, but the source material is much bloodier and more chaotic.

Tom Cullen Doesn’t Get Hypnotized

Speaking of Dayna, this episode of The Stand sees her agreeing to take on one of her most important roles from the book, being a spy sent into Randall Flagg’s New Vegas, and joining her separately on the same mission are two others from the Boulder Free Zone. This includes Judge Harris (who is changed from the male Judge Farris in the book), and Tom Cullen – but one massive difference in the case of the latter is that this new version completely nixes him being hypnotized. Stephen King originally had it so that Nick Andros and the others put Tom in a trance so that he will keep his cover story in the west and know when to travel back to Boulder. It’s one of the more fantastical parts of the novel, but it’s not in the miniseries at all.

Nick Andros And Julie Lawry Don’t Have Sex

As depicted in both the book and the adaptation, Nick Andros first encounters Julie Lawry when they are attempting to search for supplies in a department store, and the episode ends with Nick and Tom Cullen ducking her gunfire, but many of the details of the scene are switched up beyond that. It opts not to include Julie’s introduction pretending to be a mannequin as a security measure, but more significantly it skips the bit where she and Nick have sex. In Stephen King’s original version, Julie doesn’t meet Tom until after a bit of loneliness-curing coitus, though she is just as cruel to the gentle giant as she is in the miniseries, leading to the three Captain Trips outbreak survivors to not stick together.

The First Lights On Attempt Actually Goes Well

Getting the electricity back on is an event worth celebrating in a post-apocalyptic world, and the folks of the Boulder Free Zone do so properly in the Stand miniseries – with rock star Larry Underwood even putting on an electric guitar performance for the crowd of Mother Abigail followers. It’s a happy moment, and definitely a much happier event overall than how things go when the power first returns in the book. At first there’s a whole lot of happiness when it’s discovered that the Power Committee has completed its work, but that happiness is brief because the circuit is overloaded as a result of the city being full of appliances that were still on when the world shut down. Not personally knowing much about advancements in power grids that have happened in the last 40 years, I can’t say if the more modern story was benefitted by better systems or better preparedness.

The Origins Of The Dynamite

Chalk it up to the will of Randall Flagg, but in Stephen King’s The Stand we don’t actually know how Harold and Nadine wind up acquiring the explosives that they plan to use to kill the Boulder Free Zone Committee. It goes from “everything but sex” to “we’re building a bomb” rather rapidly. The miniseries fills in the gaps a bit, and rather cleverly. Controlled avalanches activated by dynamite are most definitely a thing in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, so having that be the source for the antagonists getting their hands on armaments is a smart way to answer a question previously left unanswered.

Teddy Weizak Dies A Bit Earlier Than Expected

When you get down to brass tacks, the end of Teddy Weizak’s life in both the book and miniseries is the same: he’s murdered by Harold Lauder and Nadine Cross. What separates the two mediums, however, is both the timing and the methodology. In the source material, Teddy is one of the many victims who is killed as a result of the explosive planted by the sinister duo to massacre the Boulder Free Zone committee. This new take instead sees him come across Harold and Nadine at what is just the worst moment, doing his rounds as a member of the City Watch, and for his trouble he gets peppered full of bullets. How will the Flagg-following felons get away with it? We’ll have to wait until next week to find out.

Speaking of next week and the story’s primary antagonist, The Stand is finally giving audiences their first look at Randall Flagg’s dominion in episode 5, which has the Elvis Presley-inspired title “Suspicious Minds.” Once again I’ll be back with another book-to-miniseries comparison as soon as next chapter goes live at midnight PST, so be sure to check back here on CinemaBlend as soon as you’ve watched!

In The Stand, Nadine Cross and Randall Flagg have a very… special relationship. He, a unique kind of supernatural evil, first reached out to her when she was young, and once he got his claws in they stayed buried – and the grip only tightens as the world falls apart following the Captain Trips outbreak. Audiences have seen this poisonous bond start to grow in the new CBS All Access adaptation, the characters respectively played by Amber Heard and Alexander Skarsgard, and the former had nothing but great things to say about her scene partner when discussing their roles during an interview last month.

Participating in a roundtable interview with Amber Heard last month during the virtual press day for The Stand, I took the opportunity to ask about take on Nadine’s relationship with The Dark Man and her experience working with Alexander Skarsgard. Without giving too much away, she credited a lot of the authenticity of the material on screen to her costar, saying,

The temptation of Randall Flagg was something that Amber Heard clearly thought a lot about in the making of The Stand, and she didn’t hold back when it came to analyzing what it is about the character that makes him work as such an effective antagonist – both in the new streaming series and in Stephen King’s original novel.

As noted by the actor, Randall Flagg isn’t some kind of horned demon who instills fear through chaotic violence. Instead, he not only looks like a human, but plays on what is arguably the most human aspects of his targets: their flaws. He seduces people by appealing to their most craven instincts, and encourages not the emotional low road, but the emotional easy road. Said Heard,

Randall Flagg’s seduction approach varies from target to target, as seen over the course of both Stephen King’s The Stand and new adaptation, because different things appeal to different people. Above all else, though, he is charismatic, and that’s what Amber Heard finds “genius” about the portrayal by Alexander Skarsgard. She continued:

Amber Heard further explained that it’s the captivating nature of Randall Flagg and Alexander Skarsgard that makes the character sinister. When he’s putting life’s options on the table, he makes it hard for you to not take the long road to his slowly growing kingdom in Las Vegas:

At this point in The Stand miniseries, audiences have really only seen Randall Flagg as a background player – which is very much in line with the structure of the book – but that’s going to change a great deal in the weeks ahead. Flagg’s role is only going to get bigger and bigger in the second half of the adaptation, and that very much includes further developments in his relationship with Nadine.

The fourth episode of The Stand, titled “The House Of The Dead,” will be available on CBS All Access starting at midnight PST on Thursday, January 7.

Stephen King wrote nearly 700 pages in the uncut version of The Stand before finally providing readers a peek into life in Randall Flagg’s Las Vegas, and while the new CBS All Access miniseries has changed a good number of things from the source material, that approach has been maintained in the translation across mediums. In the first four episodes of the show characters have discussed what The Dark Man has been up to, but the action has been limited to the Boulder Free Zone and the various character journeys across America.

That changes in the fifth episode, titled “Suspicious Minds” in reference to the Elvis Presley song, and based on what stars Katherine McNamara and Nat Wolff have to say about it, audiences should strap in for a serious show.

I spoke with the two actors (who, respectively, play Julie Lawry and Lloyd Henreid) during a virtual roundtable as part of the press day for The Stand last month, and asked if they could both speak to the experience of shooting in “New Vegas.” For her part, McNamara expressed a lot of awe in regards to what had been built on set – particularly given what the production was initially working with:

A big part of what Randall Flagg uses to draw followers to New Vegas in The Stand is the opportunity for people to let their id rule the day. While the survivors in the Boulder Free Zone work hard to rebuild a peaceful society, The Walking Dude orchestrates his denizens into a kind of organized chaos that emphasizes power and violence – and it’s a world that both Julie and Lloyd (at least initially) revel in.

Reflecting on his own time in New Vegas on the set of The Stand, Nat Wolff drew a comparison between it and his past big screening acting experiences, and noted that what was built out-scaled everything he has ever done – his filmography including films like The Fault In Our Stars, Paper Towns, and Death Note. Said Wolff,

Audiences will get to meet Katherine McNamara’s Julie Lawry in this week’s episode of The Stand, titled “The House Of The Dead” – which will be available for streaming on CBS All Access starting at midnight on Thursday, January 7. And for those of you counting down the days until the full reveal of New Vegas, “Suspicious Minds” will debut at the exact same time on the exact same service one week later on Thursday, January 14.

When Brad William Henke’s Tom Cullen arrives on the scene in the third episode of The Stand on CBS All Access, he’s introduced making an awesome fashion statement. Showing up in front of Henry Zaga’s Nick Andros after the quiet hero wakes from a Mother Abigail dream, the gentle giant is shown wearing an eye-catching Dolly Parton T-shirt – a sartorial touch that instantly makes you like Tom, beyond his kind spirit, and notably not something taken from Stephen King’s book.

Curious about it, I asked Henke about it during last month’s virtual press day for the miniseries, and what I learned provided a fun bit of trivia about the show and the character.

More than simply being a smart choice made by The Stand costume designer Angelina Kekich, it turns out that the Dolly Parton T-shirt is in itself a reference to Brad William Henke’s approach to his performance. The actor explained,

To help aid you in your auditory understanding of the story (and because any time is a good time to listen to Dolly Parton), you can listen to the country artist sing “The Coat Of Many Colors” via the video below:

Brad William Henke had to take a unique approach to playing Tom Cullen in The Stand because the character, as he appears in Stephen King’s original novel, is developmentally disabled. He has a number of verbal tics (with the most prominent being his repeated spelling of everything as M-O-O-N), and he needs to take a minute to process new information when it’s delivered – but he is also not to be underestimated. Tom is ultimately one of the most important figures in the story, and his greatness is only hinted at via his Dolly Parton T-shirt.

Fans haven’t seen much of Tom Cullen in The Stand just yet, but now that he’s been introduced you can expect that he’ll be featured much more prominently. This very much includes episode four, titled “The House Of The Dead,” which will be available to stream on CBS All Access starting at midnight PST this Thursday, January 7. We’ll have plenty more from the show coming your way in the coming weeks – but for now be sure to check out our weekly column covering the changes made in the miniseries from Stephen King’s book!

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I do not believe that CBS All Access would call it a stroke of luck that they chose to release The Stand in a year like 2020. Yet, you do have to admit, the health concerns the world has been facing lately have made the plot of the apocalyptic miniseries far more relevant than they might have expected. Of course, this was not the first time that Stephen King had a vision for the end of the world that was later adapted for television.

In fact, this new, nine-episode update of the 1978 novel about a battle of biblical proportions that ensues from a cataclysmic virus is not even its first transition to the screen. In 1994, ABC broadcast an Emmy-winning, four-part miniseries based on The Stand, led by Academy Award nominee Gary Sinise as Stu Redman - a role played by James Marsden in 2020. Not to mention, there are a few other works by Stephen King that have found success on television, and even a few that you could say took inspiration from his ideas of what the apocalypse might look like.

That being said, if you have been captivated by the miniseries’ infectious storyline and cannot stand to wait another week to cure your excitement, I have few suggestions that should be a helpful remedy while you wait for the next episode. In my opinion, the following 11 TV shows are just what I would prescribe to a devoted follower of The Stand, starting with another televised update of a Stephen King classic that was previously adapted for the screen.

The Mist (Netflix)

As they are already under conflict in the wake of a brutal crime, a family must band together with others when a mysterious, otherworldly threat begins terrorizing their small town, hidden behind a mysterious fog.

Why It Is A Good Option For Fans Of The Stand: Frank Darabont stayed relatively faithful to Stephen King’s 1980 novella The Mist for his 2007 feature-length adaptation (save that brutal, polarizing ending), but this 10-episode series, originally airing on Paramount Network (called Spike at the time), expands on the story of ordinary people trying to survive extraordinary circumstances, but in a more Lovecraftian way than The Stand tends to go.

Stream The Mist on Netflix here.

The Walking Dead (Netflix)

A former Georgia cop (Andrew Lincoln), his family, and others struggle to protect themselves while navigating a world ruled by the undead.

Why It Is A Good Option For Fans Of The Stand: While not inspired by the work of Stephen King, his aforementioned frequent collaborator, Frank Darabont, did originally develop this blockbuster AMC hit. It's based on Robert Kirkiman’s popular Image comic book series The Walking Dead, and, after 10 seasons and counting of chilling suspense, brutal bloodshed, and maddening civil unrest, it's just about the ultimate in end-of-the-world television these days.

Stream The Walking Dead on Netflix here.

Falling Skies (HBO Max)

A Boston University professor of military history (Noah Wyle) becomes the reluctant leader of a new war against malevolent, extra-terrestrial visitors after surviving a deadly attack.

Why It Is A Good Option For Fans Of The Stand: What The Walking Dead did for the zombie apocalypse on television, Falling Skies, from executive producer Steven Spielberg, came pretty close to matching for alien invasion stories with its chilling, five-season chronicle of how the human race falls prey to monstrous creatures before rising above them.

Stream Falling Skies on HBO Max here.

Under The Dome (CBS All Access)

Home is no longer a safe haven for the citizens of Chester’s Mill, Maine, after a transparent and impenetrable force field suddenly covers the entire community, leaving its residents confused, desperate, unable to communicate with outsiders, and running low on supplies.

Why It Is A Good Option For Fans Of The Stand: Based on a more recent novel by Stephen King, Under the Dome, like The Stand, comments on the physical and psychological challenges of the human condition in the midst of chaos. However, instead of on a global scale, this three-season series sees one small town suffering its own, personal apocalypse, inexplicably cut off from the outside world.

Stream Under the Dome on CBS All Access here.

Snowpiercer (TNT)

A former Chicago detective (Hamilton star Daveed Diggs) is enlisted by a ruthless authoritarian (Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly) to investigate a murder aboard a self-sustaining bullet train holding the last of mankind after a global snowstorm leaves the rest of the world uninhabitable.

Why It Is A Good Option For Fans Of The Stand: Based on a French graphic novel that would also inspire Bong Joon-ho’s acclaimed 2014 film, Snowpiercer sees surviving passengers attempting a post-apocalyptic recreation of society within the titular public transport. They develop a class system that puts the rich in the front, the poor at the caboose, and everybody at each other’s throats.

Stream Snowpiercer on TNT here.

Jericho (Netflix, CBS All Access)

A once idyllic Midwestern town must figure out how to reconstruct their community and reestablish communication with the outside world after witnessing a nuclear explosion just miles away.

Why It Is A Good Option For Fans Of The Stand: Like the aforementioned entries in our list, Jericho (starring a pre-Riverdale Skeet Ulrich) focuses on regular people dealing with similar post-apocalyptic circumstances in an isolated environment. But, the cause of their problem and its lingering issues is something far more realistic and, thus, even more frightening.

Stream Jericho on Netflix here or on CBS All Access here.

Lost (Hulu, IMDb TV)

The survivors of a plane crash are left to rely on whatever they have left to stay alive, sane, and civil with one another on a remote island plagued by mysterious phenomena that only worsen their struggle.

Why It Is A Good Option For Fans Of The Stand: While the rest of the world is just fine, the personal worlds of the cast of Lost end in the pilot, before things only get stranger for them, on this hit drama from executive producers J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof.

Stream Lost on Hulu here or on IMDb TV here.

Carnivale (HBO Max)

A young man on the the run from the law (Nick Stahl) takes a job at a traveling sideshow while a devout California preacher (Clancy Brown) grows desperate to serve God - each unwitting to the staggering, revolutionary conflict they are each destined to lead with the use of their unusual abilities.

Why It Is A Good Option For Fans Of The Stand: Excluding elements of a post-apocalyptic tale, the Emmy-winning HBO period drama Carnivale has plenty in common with The Stand, specifically an emerging, fantastic battle between good and evil that takes inspiration from biblical text.

Stream Carnivàle on HBO Max here.

The Dead Zone (Tubi, IMDb TV)

A science teacher (Anthony Michael Hall) awakens from a coma after six years to find that he suddenly has the ability to see the future simply by touching a certain item.

Why It Is A Good Option For Fans Of The Stand: One of the most iconic characters from The Stand is Mother Abagail Freemantle (played by Whoopi Goldberg in the new miniseries) for her prophetic visions, much like the precognitive gifts of Johnny Smith in The Dead Zone - an acclaimed USA series also based on a Stephen King novel, which was previously adapted into a 1983 feature film starring Christopher Walken and directed by David Cronenberg.

Stream The Dead Zone on Tubi here or on IMDb TV here.

Castle Rock (Hulu)

Ordinary people, such as a disgraced lawyer and a head nurse at the local hospital, discover the extraordinary causes behind the series of tragic events that their quaint Maine community is infamous for.

Why It Is A Good Option For Fans Of The Stand: Speaking of precognitive abilities, you may notice that to be a recurring theme among many characters created by Stephen King, whose work inspired Hulu’s horror anthology series Castle Rock (named after a town of the author’s invention). The second season borrows a lot from certain elements of The Stand, as well as Misery, Salem’s Lot, and plenty more I might need to look for on a rewatch.

Stream Castle Rock on Hulu here.

Good Omens (Amazon Prime)

The unlikely friendship between an angel (Michael Sheen) and a demon (David Tennant) turns into an alliance to prevent the end of the world years after the birth of the antichrist.

Why It Is A Good Option For Fans Of The Stand: Following a considerable amount of doom and gloom among the previous entries in our list (even the ones that do not involve Armageddon), a good way to round-out this ultimate binge for The Stand fans is Good Omens. The Amazon Prime original miniseries is based on the hilarious book by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, which puts a much lighter spin on the end of days by imagining how forces of good and evil could co-exist.

Stream Good Omens on Amazon Prime here.

What do you think? Could you use a laugh after putting up with the apocalypse for a year… I mean, hours. Or, is watching others suffer worse fates than you your primary source of entertainment? Let us know in the comments and be sure to check back for additional information and updates on The Stand, as well as even more of our own recommendations about what is available to stream right now, here on CinemaBlend.

Amber Heard and Johnny Depp have had a long court-filled year on top of the long, disease-filled year the rest of us faced in 2020. Following Johnny Depp’s libel court case in the U.K., he and Amber Heard will once more be returning to court in the U.S. for a second case, this one about defamation. Still, despite this, Heard seems to be looking forward to the New Year. The Aquaman 2 actress even shared her advice for 2021.

Amber Heard’s been out and about promoting the Stephen King series The Stand recently. During an interview with Access Hollywood, she was asked about her takeaway from 2020 while heading into the New Year. She noted, simply.

Amber Heard has faced a lot this year while dealing with the various Johnny Depp court cases. (She is actually being sued as part of the defamation case, but was only a part of Depp’s libel case after she testified.) Though the libel lawsuit wasn't hers, there have been “Justice for Johnny” campaigns rolling online and at one point, a faction on the Internet created a petition asking that she be removed from the role of Mera in DC’s Aquaman 2.

Yet it sounds as if the actress is adapting to the circumstances she has found herself in following her high-profile split from Johnny Depp and the allegations of abuse she first insinuated, with stories later coming out in full, as both parties pinned allegations on one another. Accounts of what happened during their time together have become muddled as Depp accused Amber Heard of pooping in their marital bed, a move she says was the dogs. Heard has also said Depp famously injured his finger whilst being abusive to himself and he says she was responsible for the finger injury. And so it goes on.

Meanwhile, Amber Heard seems to be focusing on herself and her person as she looks to face the Virginia defamation case in 2021. That court case had been pushed back, first due to Covid-19 and then later as Heard and Depp seemingly had conflicting schedules, him with Fantastic Beasts 3 and her with Aquaman 2. Of course, now Depp has been replaced as Grindelwald in the Harry Potter universe spinoffs and Mads Mikkelsen has taken his place.

Amber Heard’s comments come just a few days after Johnny Depp took to social media to share his own takeaways from 2020. He mentioned the year being hard on everyone, but seemed cheerful for the year ahead. We’ll have to wait and see if that attitude holds up, as he and Heard may be facing another long year in the court system. He’s sued her for $50 million. She’s countersued for $100 million.

We’ve met Stu Redman; we’ve met Fran Goldsmith; we’ve met Harold Lauder; we’ve met Larry Underwood; and we’ve met Lloyd Henreid. And yet The Stand on CBS All Access is only still just starting its epic battle between good and evil on its pandemic-ravaged, post-apocalyptic stage. Structured non-linearly, the early episodes have slowly been introducing audiences to the many characters in the Stephen King adaptation’s massive ensemble, and now that we’ve hit the third chapter, titled “Blank Page,” viewers are being familiarized with the likes of Nadine Cross (Amber Heard), Nick Andros (Henry Zaga), Tom Cullen (Brad William Henke), and Glen Bateman (Greg Kinnear).

These are all key characters that are very familiar to fans of the original novel, but just like the previous episodes, there are some notable things in the new miniseries that have been changed, altered, or omitted from the original text. It’s via this weekly column that we’re examining these alternations individually, and just as we did for “The End” and “Pocket Savior,” we’ll start by recognizing how “Blank Page” quickly starts the episode with material new to even Constant Readers…

The Young Nadine Dream/Flashback

There are passages in The Stand (specifically in Chapter 49) when Stephen King tells us a bit about Nadine Cross’ backstory, namely that she was orphaned at the age of six, and lived with her aunt and uncle for ten years before running away when she was 16. It was at this time that she began her “relationship” with Randall Flagg – but the miniseries changes some of those details. For starters, this version of Nadine grew up in an orphanage instead of with relatives, but more importantly The Walking Dude starts whispering in her ear at a much younger age. We don’t specifically know how old she is when she is shown with a group of girls using a planchette, but it’s very clearly Flagg’s first outreach, as he makes her write, “Nadine will be my queen, we are in the house of the dead.”

The Crucified Man Arrives

Readers of The Stand are most definitely familiar with Randall Flagg’s penchant for literally crucifying those who try and rebel against him, and that’s a harsh detail brought to life in the miniseries’ third episode – albeit in a way that isn’t featured in the source material. The whole subplot involving the messenger sent from Las Vegas to the Boulder Free Zone is an invention of the adaptation, albeit one that borrows elements straight from the book. Without more context, it seems the primary function of the addition is to give audiences a brief glimpse into what is going on under The Dark Man’s rule in the west until we get a full dose of the action in a later episode.

There Is A Doctor In The Boulder Free Zone

One of the prime sources of drama as society is reconfiguring itself in The Stand is the fact that not a lot of doctors have survived the Captain Trips outbreak – which is something that is particularly of concern to Fran Goldsmith given her whole pregnancy situation. One of the most distressing stories that comes out of the journey to Hemingford Home in the book is the attempt at an amateur appendectomy that ends with a dead patient. We still might see that scene brought to life later down the line in the miniseries, but one interesting new element introduced in the adaptation is that the Boulder Free Zone does have a doctor (albeit not an OB-GYN) and also a veterinary technician. In the latest episode it allows Fran to get an ultrasound that provides her first look at her unborn baby, and also broach the question of whether or not the child will be immune to the respiratory virus like its mother.

Stu, Fran, And Harold Don’t Stay Together After First Meeting

When Stu meets Harold and Fran in The Stand miniseries, the dynamics are definitely adapted straight from the book. Being the jealous weasel that he is, Harold is immediately suspicious of Stu as a potential romantic rival for his crush, and tensions are high as a result. Where things deviate from the text is in where things conclude. In Stephen King’s book, Stu convinces the incel from Ongunquette, Maine that he is no threat to their relationship, and the three of them wind up traveling together on the road to Hemingford Home, as opposed to going their separate ways like they do in the CBS All Access show. It seems that this choice was made because Stu now doesn’t meet Glen until after his encounter with Fran and Harold, presumably setting up their reunion on the road in a later episode.

The Start Of Nick’s Story Get Simplified

Like in the book, Nick Andros’ story “starts” when he is assaulted at a bar in Shoyo, Arkansas, but beyond that the miniseries seriously reduces the first leg of his journey. In Stephen King’s version, there is a whole arc that finds Nick given hospitality by the local sheriff following the violence and experiencing his own personal morality play as he weighs whether or not to help the men who attacked him when they are in jail dying from the outbreak. It’s because Nick decides to do the Good Guy thing that he winds up losing his eye – and that’s obviously handled very differently on the adaptation of The Stand. Rather than have Nick witness Captain Trips slowly decimate the town of Shoyo, all of that material is cut down and partially transplanted into a hospital setting.

Nick Meets Tom In The Hospital

Staying on the subject of that hospital setting, the fact that Nick meets Tom Cullen there is another way that his narrative has been condensed. In Stephen King’s The Stand, Nick first encounters the simple-but-friendly loner when he is already on the road, discovering him laying down on the street in May, Oklahoma, but this new version seemingly makes it so that Tom is a native of Shoyo, which brings them together faster. Based on the trailers we’ll still get to see their experience with the psychotic Julie Lawry play out in a future episode, but it’s not included as part of their initial meeting in “Blank Page.”

Glen Is Actually A Talented Painter

One of the funny quirks that makes Glen Bateman instantly likable when he is introduced in Stephen King’s novel is the fact that he enjoys painting – but is in actuality a terrible painter. Taking the optimistic point of view, he reasons that he may suck, but he is also very possibly the most talented artist left on the planet. In the miniseries, Glen’s painting is approached a bit differently, namely as a tool to move the story forward. It’s because of the sociology professor’s impressive collection of oil-on-canvas that Stu Redman discovers that they have both been having the same dream about Mother Abigail, and it also informs the traveler from East Texas about Fran Goldsmith being pregnant.

“Blank Page” most definitely packed in a lot of action for a 51 minute episode, and the epic will continue next week with the launch of the fourth episode, titled “The House Of The Dead.” You can be sure that we’ll be back with another edition of our book-to-show comparison, so stay tuned for that coverage of The Stand here on CinemaBlend, as well as much more!

With last week’s premiere episode of The Stand on CBS All Access, we learned something important about how the new miniseries is breaking up its story. Rather than specifically following the book or following a linear narrative, the show is using a flashback heavy formula and using its early chapters to center on specific characters. “The End” had the task of introducing Odessa Young’s Fran Goldsmith, Owen Teague’s Harold Lauder, and James Marsden’s Stu Redman, and now “Pocket Savior” has put the spotlight on Jovan Adepo’s Larry Underwood and Nat Wolff’s Lloyd Henreid.

There is a lot in the sophomore episode that is taken directly from Stephen King’s novel, including Larry’s tryst with Rita Blakemoor (Heather Graham), and Lloyd getting caught in the midst of his crime spree with his partner Poke Freeman – but there are also a number of things that are altered, omitted, or straight up changed. It’s those elements that we’re here to explore, and we’ll start with one from the first flashback:

Larry Is Still Performing When Captain Trips Hits

By the time Captain Trips starts spreading around the world in the Stephen King book, Larry Underwood has taken a step back from his rock and roll lifestyle. With “Baby Can You Dig Your Man” rocketing up the charts, he begins to get overwhelmed with all the money and drugs, and makes the decision to get away from it all by going to New York. The timeline seems to be a bit different for him in the new Stand miniseries, however, as the earliest point we meet him in the story doesn’t feature him quite at rock bottom yet. Instead, he’s still playing concerts even when his entire band is calling in sick with the virus. It’s both a change from the source material, and what we can now look at from personal experience amidst the spread of COVID-19 as really bad mid-pandemic behavior.

Did Larry Steal “Baby Can You Dig Your Man” From Wayne Stuckey?

When we meet Wayne Stuckey in Stephen King’s novel, he’s actually a character with a positive influence on Larry Underwood. He’s introduced as a friend of the musician’s and someone looking out for his best interest when he starts becoming a party monster (it’s because of Wayne’s suggestion that Larry returns to New York). In the new adaptation, however, the relationship is totally flipped. Not only are Larry and Wayne ex-friends, but the one not living the rock star lifestyle is convinced that his former roommate stole the hook and chorus of “Baby Can You Dig Your Man” from him. Did that actually happen? This episode doesn’t provide any specific closure, but perhaps we’ll get some later down the line.

The Boulder Free Zone Committee Shrinks A Bit

When Larry Underwood first arrives in Boulder, Colorado with his caravan, he is surprised to discover that Stu Redman both knows his name and has been waiting for him. As we learn from a conversation that the two characters have, he is one of five people selected by Mother Abigail specifically to be a part of the group that will govern the new society (eventually known as the Boulder Free Zone Committee). If you’re a Constant Reader and that particular number struck your ear funny, there’s a good reason. In Stephen King’s tome the size of the committee is seven members – with Larry, Stu, Fran Goldsmith, Nick Andros, and Glen Bateman joined by Ralph Brentner (changed to Ray Brentner in the show) and Susan Stern. One can imagine that the adaptation chose to go this way if not only to try and simplify things and not overwhelm audiences with an excess of characters.

Larry’s Big Bag Of Drugs

Not only is the connection with Wayne Stuckey changed in the show, but so too is the end of his relationship with the “Baby Can You Dig Your Man” singer. After taking his mother out of the hospital, Larry arrives at her place, and he is confronted once again by Wayne – who is very clearly dying from Captain Trips. Larry only pays him any mind after his mom has died, and even then it has nothing to do with their personal history together. Instead, the troubled musician is exclusively interested in the big duffel bag of drugs that Wayne has in his car – which he still has with him when his time with Rita Blakemoor is at an end (more on that in a minute). The bag of drugs isn’t something featured in Stephen King’s book, so we’ll have to wait see what happens with it as the show progresses.

The Monster Shouter Doesn’t Get The Spotlight

The Monster Shouter is far from a major character in Stephen King’s The Stand, but the novel certainly features a hell of a lot more of him than the adaptation does. In the CBS All Access show he doesn’t actually physically appear, and is instead merely a topic of conversation between Larry Underwood and Rita Blakemoor (as in the book, it’s Larry who gives him the “Monster Shouter” moniker). But his fate is much more notable in King’s version. Before they get out of New York, Larry and Rita come upon his mutilated corpse, which is riddled with stab wounds and chewed on by rats. He was played by NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the 1994 miniseries, and it’s too bad that there wasn’t a stunt-casting tradition maintained with this new version.

A Trip Through The Sewers Instead Of The Lincoln Tunnel

One of the most disturbing sequences in the first act of Stephen King’s The Stand plays out when Larry Underwood is trying to leave New York City and finds his only way to do so is via the pitch black and traffic/body congested Lincoln Tunnel. It’s a haunting, nightmarish part of the book that stays with the reader long after it’s over. But the CBS All Access version decided to go a different direction with it. Instead of the tunnel, the new adaptation instead finds Larry and Rita Blakemoor going on a different kind of underground adventure, specifically by heading into the sewers after being pursued by a group of rapists. One thing that the parallel scenes do share in common is Rita freaking out and then showing up again at a later point, but other than that they are markedly dissimilar.

We Don’t See Larry Discover Rita’s Body

Of all the characters in The Stand stuck in the middle of the battle between good and evil, Larry Underwood is arguably tugged both ways the hardest. He wants to be a decent person, but he’s also selfish and frequently gives into his worst impulses. His relationship with Rita Blakemoor in the book is a testament to his efforts to change, as he tries to be courteous to her in the face on constant complaining, and the way their journey together ends winds up having a lasting impact on him. But it’s a bit different in the adaptation. In the new miniseries, we simply see Rita take enough pills to guarantee an overdose – but what we don’t see is the aftermath, which is Larry waking up next to her and discovering that she is dead, which is detailed horrifically in the text. It’s possible that we will get to see this depressing scene later in the season, but for now it feels like it’s missing.

That covers all the changes from Stephen King’s book in “Pocket Savior,” but we’ll be back next week doing a deep dive into the events that play out in The Stand episode three, titled “Blank Page.” Stay tuned for that here on CinemaBlend, as well as other features, interviews, news, and more!

Stephen King has created some wild characters over the course of his career, but few compare to Donald Elbert a.k.a. The Trashcan Man in The Stand. A schizophrenic pyromaniac who finds himself roaming an near-empty world thanks to his immunity from the Captain Trips virus, his entire arc in the book is basically about just letting his freak flag fly and giving in to every psychotic impulse that his id produces. Thanks to Trashy’s extreme eccentricities, there is extreme curiosity abound about how he will be portrayed in the new adaptation hitting CBS All Access, and based on what producers Benjamin Cavell and Taylor Elmore have to say about the performance from actor Ezra Miller we should be in for one hell of a show.

During the virtual press day for The Stand earlier this month I had the opportunity to ask the two filmmakers about what fans can expect from Ezra Miller’s Trashcan Man, and they painted one hell of a picture. According to them, the DC Extended Universe star held nothing back in his performance, having wanted to play the role ever since he first read the book when he was younger, and personally contributed greatly to the construction of the character. Said Taylor Elmore of their conversation with him when the production offered the role,

After that point, Ezra Miller essentially went method with the performance, with Elmore saying that he wasn’t sure “how often I really met Ezra after that.” Even when the cameras weren’t rolling the actor apparently kept up his Trashcan Man energy, and while that certainly must have been strange for the filmmakers and Miller’s co-stars, the effort was appreciated. Said the producer,

It wasn’t just about Ezra Miller fully committing to the totally fried personality of Trashcan Man either, as there were also some… choices made about how the character would be presented sartorially. The Stand co-creator Benjamin Cavell explained that one of the key contributions that the actor made to the look of the character was making the decision that he would wear next to nothing.

Under most circumstances this wouldn’t have been a big deal, as one could definitely make a solid argument that it’s a direction that lines up with who Trashcan Man is. And the producers apparently didn’t balk at that side of the equation. What did give them some pause, however, was simple concern for Ezra Miller’s well being given the fact that the show wasn’t exactly filmed in the warmest conditions. Cavell explained,

He had said from the beginning he's gonna wear underwear and his kind of tactical web gear, and nothing else. And it was like, 'Well, okay, but we're shooting in Vancouver and then we're going to the desert four hours outside of Vancouver. It's going to be literal... That is the Tundra! That's not like the Tundra. You're not going to be cold?' But it's like, 'Well, Trash wouldn't be cold.' 'Okay!' What do you say?

There are surely a lot of performers who would instantly regret such a decision when they found themselves standing in out in a cold wasteland wearing next to nothing, but apparently Ezra Miller’s name isn’t included on that particular list. The producers continued,

Are you now as excited to see Ezra Miller’s incarnation of The Trashcan Man as we are? Well, there is some slightly bad news on that front – specifically that fans are going to need to exercise a bit of patience alongside their anticipation. Because of the amount of story that needs to be set up in The Stand, Stephen King’s loopiest pyromaniac won’t be introduced on the show until the sixth episode of the season, titled “The Vigil” (which is scheduled to air on January 21, 2021). We’ll be counting down the days here on CinemaBlend, but during that time we’ll also continue providing you with plenty of exclusive content, so stay tuned in the weeks to come!

In a certain light, Stephen King’s The Stand exists as a living document. The post-apocalyptic novel was originally published in 1978, but the author has taken multiple opportunities to change the text. In 1990 an unabridged version of the book was published, adding about 400 pages to the story as it was originally published, and a few years after that he personally took on the task of adapting the material as a six-hour miniseries.

More than a quarter century has passed since that last update, but now King has made further revisions in the form of a new coda that will air as the final episode of the new miniseries on CBS All Access. It’s an exciting development for all Constant Readers, and now making it only more anticipated is the revelation that the character at the center of the new “chapter” will be Fran Goldsmith – played by Odessa Young in the new adaptation.

We’re still about two months away from seeing the finale of The Stand arrive on CBS All Access, but co-creator Benjamin Cavell teased the episode during the show’s TCA Panel earlier this month, and in doing so revealed a key bit of information regarding its plot and focus. According to the filmmaker, Stephen King has spent years nagged by the fact that Fran is reduced to a passive role in the third act of the story, and one of the goals of what’s been called the “coda” is to remedy that situation. Said Cavell,

In Stephen King’s novel, the reader literally meets Fran Goldsmith right as she is discovering that she is pregnant with her boyfriend’s baby. She spends the entire book carrying the child, and is about ready to go into labor by the time the big third act showdown plays out. As a result, she is not exactly a character equipped to play an active role in the battle against Randall Flagg – especially because the first leg of that journey involves hiking on foot from Boulder, Colorado to Las Vegas, Nevada.

The source material leaves the titular Stand to four male characters – Stu Redman, Larry Underwood, Glen Bateman, and Ralph Brentner – and it’s worth noting that it already looks like the miniseries is updating the demographics of the showdown, as Ralph Brentner has been gender swapped as Ray Brentner (portrayed by Irene Bedard). Stephen King’s new ending will apparently go the extra mile, however, and provide Fran with a more active part.

Acknowledging both what was and what will be, Benjamin Cavell continued,

Speaking with Odessa Young later that same day in a virtual roundtable interview with a small group of other reporters, I asked her what it meant to her that the new version of The Stand was getting updated with a coda written by Stephen King, and she expressed that it means a lot to her personally. She expressed sincere love for the fact that King is still updating [his story] to this day, more than 40 years after the book was originally published, and personally being a fan it does a solid job blowing her mind that she gets to play a part in what immediately becomes a noteworthy part of pop culture. Said the actor,

Now, however, Odessa Young has had time to step back from the experience and can appreciate it all as a fan instead of just as a performer. She continued,

The first episode of The Stand is now available to stream exclusively on CBS All Access, and those of you keeping track you’ll be able to see the Stephen King-written finale/coda on February 11, 2021. We’ll be providing a whole lot of coverage for the show between now and then, so stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more interviews, features, news updates, and more.

It’s finally here. After years and years of waiting, a new miniseries version of Stephen King’s The Stand has arrived, with its first episode landing on CBS All Access this week. It’s an exciting time for fans who have been watching the project move ever so slowly through development – but it’s also a key time to provide a reminder that the show isn’t going to be a carbon copy of its source material. Factors including the book being multiple decades old and having been previously adapted are going to influence certain new choices made by the filmmakers. And that’s clearly evident in the series premiere, titled “The End.”

So what exactly has been changed? The true answer is quite a number of things, but primarily there are eight key differences that we found between the book and the show. Some of them are significant, and some of them are just simple alterations, and we’ve dug into all of them below.

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for the first episode of The Stand. If you have not yet watched it, proceed at your own risk!

The Story Has A Non-Linear Structure

The Stand doesn’t waste any time throwing big changes from the book at the audience, as the very first frame proves to be a deviation. Fans of the source material likely expected that the miniseries would open with Charles D. Campion’s fateful desertion of his post at the California military base housing Captain Trips, but that scene was ironically used to close out “The End,” and instead our first look into the world of the show is via Harold Lauder’s first day on body disposal duty. It sets up what is a surprising structure for the adaptation, which bounces back and forth in time – simultaneously showing the journeys of the key characters across the United States and the establishment of a new society in what is dubbed the Boulder Free Zone.

Dr. Denninger And “Dr.” Elder Get Replaced By Dr. Ellis And “Dr.” Cobb

For the most part, The Stand’s treatment of Stuart Redman’s first interaction with Captain Trips is a faithful one, as in broad strokes he goes from being a normal guy hanging out at a gas station in Arnett, Texas to being identified as one of the world’s few immune human beings and transported first to the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia and then up to Stovington, Vermont. There are two interesting changes within that arc, however, and they involve the doctor taking care of Stu, and the military officer keeping an eye on him. In the book their names are, respectively, Dr. Denninger And “Dr.” Elder, but in the miniseries they are Dr. Ellis And “Dr.” Cobb. The alterations beyond that are mostly superficial, such as the more genial relationship between Stu and Ellis, and Cobb gets his throat slit instead of being shot like Elder, but the name changes are odd.

Fran Had A Deaf Brother, And Her Family Never Learns About Her Pregnancy

Frannie Goldsmith’s introduction in Stephen King’s The Stand is full of family drama, with young woman confessing to her parents that she is pregnant – exacerbating the polar relationships that she has with her loving father and distant mother shortly before both of them die of Captain Trips. That material is mostly sidestepped in the miniseries, as we never actually see Fran’s mom, and she never burdens her dad with the news that she is expecting (or at least we don’t see her do it on screen). It’s not all about subtraction, though, as one thing that’s added to the character’s backstory is that she had a deaf brother who passed away at a young age. This is a personal experience that fans can expect to add a new dimension to her relationship with Nick Andros – who is a character we don’t meet in “The End,” but is a deaf-mute who is ultimately vital to the story.

Hemingford Home Moves From Nebraska To Colorado

While there are questions to be asked about some of the deviations from the source material made by the Stand miniseries, this one is fairly obvious. For a reason that’s not entirely explained in the book, the first “calls” sent out psychically by Abigail Freemantle prompt people in the post-apocalypse to head towards Hemingford Home, Nebraska, but a few weeks later her group moves across state lines, and later psychic “calls” on people to travel to Boulder, Colorado to meet her instead. It’s an unnecessary setting change that really has no impact on the story, so it’s not hard to tell why the show just decided to basically put Hemingford Home and Boulder in the same place (presumably the fictional town of Hemingford Home is a suburb of the city in this universe).

Fran Tries To Kill Herself

There is no questioning that Fran gets depressed at the end of the world, feeling great despair about what society is going to look like when her child is born, but the new Stand miniseries takes that to another level by featuring a sequence where the character attempts to commit suicide. Rather than die a slow, lonely death in Ogunquit, Maine, she swallows a bunch of unidentified pills and passes out in the shower, surviving only because Harold finds her and forces her to throw up. This is presumably meant to enhance the feeling from Harold’s perspective that Fran owes him something (fun fact: she absolutely doesn’t), and further spur his resentment when she rejects his affections.

Stu Leaving The Facility And Meeting Starkey

Stu’s escape from the Stovington, Vermont facility following containment breach in the book is one of the creepiest sequences in the book, as he is forced to journey blindly through a massively confusing underground environment basically just praying that he will one day see outside again. The adaptation of The Stand simplifies this a bit, specifically by taking the horror aspect out of the escape and fitting General William Starkey in a whole new role. While the CBS All Access miniseries puts him in command of the entire Stovington facility, in the novel Starkey is the general who oversees the base where Captain Trips first broke out of containment, fixating on details in security cameras including a man who died with his face in a bowl of soup. One thing that remains consistent between the show and the novel is that Starkey dies as a result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Fran And Harold Head Off To Atlanta, Not Stovington, Vermont

As shown towards the end of The Stand’s first episode, Stu, Fran, and Harold wind up being an important trio at the core of the larger unfolding story, but based on the evidence presented in “The End” their first time meeting each other won’t be exactly the same as in Stephen King’s book. How do we know this? Because in the source material Fran and Harold leave Ogunquit, Maine heading to the fictional CDC facility in Stovington, Vermont, and that’s where they run into a post-escape Stu. In the miniseries it is established that the “couple” is headed to Atlanta, Georgia instead, which means that they will probably meet Stu under more original circumstances.

Flagg Rides With Campion

Alexander Skarsgard turn as the powerful, sinister Randall Flagg is certainly one of the most anticipated aspects of the new miniseries, but with the majority of The Stand’s series debut centering on protagonists battling the invisible enemy that is Captain Trips there isn’t much room made for his proper introduction. Instead, the episode opts to go the tease route instead, and does so by inserting the character into some new, key places in the story. In the book Charles D. Campion has no idea why he is able to get out of his guard tower when the facility is locking down, instead focusing more on the opportunity to be with his wife and daughter, but the miniseries adds a new wrinkle by establishing that the door to his station is kept ajar by Flagg’s boot. Having the villainous character showing up in the backseat of Campion’s car after first appearing as a hitchhiker is another original detail, but it certainly fits with the way things play out in the big picture.

Episode 2 of The Stand, titled “Pocket Savior,” will be made available on CBS All Access starting on Christmas Eve, and be sure to head back here to CinemaBlend after you watch, as we’ll have another show-to-book comparison waiting for you!

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At long last, the CBS All-Access adaptation of Stephen King’s 1978 dark fantasy novel, The Stand, is finally upon us. Before you know it, we will all be glued to our television screens and other devices as we follow the nine-episode story about a group of survivors trying to save what’s left of the world following a devastating plague and seemingly endless battles between the forces of good and evil. But before we see how James Marsden, Whoopi Goldberg, and Alexander Skarsgård’s characters translate to the screen, it might be best to go over just how we will be able to watch The Stand streaming.

With not much time between now and the show’s release, there’s not much time to waste before it’s too late. That being said, here’s a quick rundown on how to watch The Stand streaming and everything else to know about watching the latest Stephen King miniseries.

How To Watch The Stand Streaming

Once The Stand premieres on CBS All-Access on December 17, all you will have to do is log in to your account to start streaming. Since this is one of the streaming platform’s major programs, it will be likely featured on the home screen of the app or website (depending on which method you use to enjoy the show). If you don’t find it there, all you need to do is search for the show in the search bar on the top of the screen and you’ll be watching Josh Boone and Benjamin Cavell’s version of Stephen King’s iconic novel in no time at all. A subscription to CBS All Access is required.

How Will The Stand Episodes Be Released

It should be noted that only the first episode of The Stand will be available when the show premieres on December 17. Following the show’s launch, new episodes will be released every Thursday until the finale becomes available on CBS All Access on February 11, 2021. This traditional release schedule could help build the tension for the audience as they have to wait seven days between new episodes, unlike shows on streaming services like Netflix that give everything to you in one giant drop. If you come to the show any time after the airing of the limited series’ finale, you will be able to watch everything in one go, but that does mean you have to wait two months to do so.

Will The Stand Limited Series Be Available To Purchase

There is currently no information out there about purchasing a copy (both physical and digital) of The Stand, but CBS All Access originals like Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Discovery, and The Twilight Zone are available for purchase at places like Amazon. This opens the door for The Stand, so don’t be surprised if you see the Stephen King miniseries on the online retailer and streamer at some point in the future.

Well, all of that should help you figure out everything you need to know about watching The Stand streaming when it premieres on CBS All Access later this week. If you want to know what else is coming out on television and streaming services in the next few weeks and months, check out CinemaBlend’s Fall 2020 and Spring/Winter 2021 release guides.

Have you considered using a VPN? You may already use one as a way to keep your internet access secure when using public wi-fi, but did you know you can use a VPN to watch your favorite streaming content when you're traveling out of region? If you're traveling out of the U.S. area and still want to catch The Stand on CBS All Access, consider using a VPN.

Even though Stephen King has nearly always been more than merely a "horror writer," he will forever be linked with the genre, since he's responsible for dozens of the most iconic horror novels in all of literature. Of course, part of the fun in being a King fan is witnessing the endless line of film and TV adaptations inspired by his long list of titles. Not that it's always fun, with more than a few King-based projects sharing very little of what made the source material special in the first place. And arguably the biggest offender on that front in recent years was CBS' Under the Dome series.

To be sure, Stephen King has expressed some of his feelings about Under the Dome in the past, with his reaction basically amounting to disapproving meh-ness. But because King actively embraces as much pop culture as he can experience, that disapproving meh-ness puts Under the Dome in limited company, and makes the author's biting criticisms all the more hilarious when they surface. (It's way harder to argue against his views than it is to argue against Under the Dome's rapid distancing from the vibes and plots of the novel after three seasons.)

In anticipation of CBS All Access' upcoming The Stand miniseries, King spoke with the New York Times about the long list of TV adaptations made from his works, and therein confirmed his mind definitely hasn't changed recently about Under the Dome.

I'm giving his use of "great" a glimmer of side-eye, but I'll grant him the notion that at least the first episodes were somewhat surreal and pulpy as well as being schmaltzy, so it seemed like there were more exciting places to go. As opposed to realizing in hindsight that the series was already peaking at that point. Like the first bites of meatloaf are usually the best, before the meal cools off and becomes a protein sludge next to the butter-less mashed potatoes. Dammit, I think this metaphor has itself gone off the rails.

With his next words about Under the Dome, Stephen King laid out possibly the best working definition of passive disappointment I've ever heard.

Shall we take bets now on whether Stephen King ended that sentence with "shit" or "fuck?" Maybe he went off the beaten path and said he didn't give "half a woodchuck's dick" or something. This guessing game is arguably more sensical than a variety of different Under the Dome scenes involving the pink stars, so we're good.

Last year, Stephen King challenged Netflix to produce a reboot of Under the Dome, but one that gives viewers an adaptation that's at least partly faithful to the source material. If Disney+ ever got into the Stephen King business, I'm sure they'd order up at least 14 new TV shows and movies in an instant.

In the long run, Under the Dome likely isn't the worst live-action Stephen King adaptation, not in a world where The Tommyknockers and Maximum Overdrive exist without reboots. But make sure to check out The Stand on CBS All Access when it premieres on Thursday, December 17. And in the meantime, head to our Fall TV premiere schedule and our Winter and Spring 2021 TV guide to see what new and returning shows are on the way soon.

The long-awaited new adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand is finally only days away from premiering on CBS All Access to reveal what sets it apart not only from the book, but also from the 1994 miniseries. Reviews for the nine-episode series are in to reveal what critics think about the latest Stephen King adaptation, and there seems to be a consensus on at least one front.

The Stand adapts Stephen King's gargantuan novel of the same name that runs for more than 1000 pages, and it has only nine hours to do so with a stacked cast of characters. The plot reveals a world decimated by a pandemic, but not one quite like the current COVID-19 pandemic. Called "Captain Trips," the virus wipes out most of humanity, and The Stand follows the stories of a group of survivors and the conflict between good and evil as they congregate in Boulder, CO.

Starring Whoopi Goldberg as Mother Abagail and Alexander Skarsgard as Randall Flagg as the representations of good and evil, The Stand's cast is filled out by the likes of James Marsden, Odessa Young, Jovan Adepo, Amber Heard, Owen Teague, and more. Read on to find out what critics think of CBS All Access' The Stand. Vinnie Mancuso of Collider compared the structure of The Stand to the flashbacks of Lost, saying:

The structure that worked for Lost isn't as successful when it comes to The Stand, according to this reviewer, who raises the point that following the story could be difficult for viewers who haven't read Stephen King's novel. The book is quite long and packs a long list of characters, so readers may be at an advantage going into the CBS All Access series. That said, what isn't evident after four episodes might be more clear by the end of the series. Vinnie Mancuso continued:

While the structure of The Stand may not be winning universal acclaim from reviewers, the show is also tasked with showing a post-apocalyptic world that isn't the same post-apocalyptic world that has been done time and again on television and in film. TV Guide's Keith Phipps praised The Stand for building a convincing new reality for the few survivors and keeping the story interesting:

The consensus among critics on the strongest point of The Stand seems to be that the cast shines where the structure isn't always so successful, and The Stand did pack some notable names into the ensemble, including Stephen King adaptation alum Owen Teague from the latest versions of IT. Roxana Hadadi of Variety notes that Alexander Skarsgard is particularly effective as the "standout" of the series, and says of the cast as a whole:

A cast alone can't make a show a hit, but the strong actors may result in a strong focus on character despite the show playing with time in its structure. Nicole Drum of ComicBook.com suggests that the focus on character over plot works for The Stand, although perhaps not for all fans of Stephen King's book. Drum shared:

While a series based on a Stephen King novel may earn itself a reputation as a horror story, and a post-apocalyptic setting may suggest science-fiction, The Stand is actually a fantasy saga with ties to a larger mythology in King's pantheon of works. SFGATE compares the Stand miniseries to Lord of the Rings, with reviewer Joshua Sargent praising the series' sense of hope despite all of the darkness of the premise:

The wait to see The Stand for yourself is finally almost at an end, nearly two years after CBS All Access officially ordered the series back in January 2019. The first episode of the new Stand miniseries premieres on CBS All Access on Thursday, December 17. The first season will run for nine episodes and feature episodes written by Stephen King and son Owen King, among others. Stephen King himself wrote the finale, so be sure to check out The Stand if you're a fan of the novel and/or King!

For some additional viewing options in the new year, take a look at our 2021 winter and spring TV premiere schedule for what to watch and when to watch it.

Speculation surrounding Marilyn Manson’s involvement in CBS All Access' The Stand miniseries circulated for months before it became clear the shock rocker isn't involved. The singer was initially rumored to be playing the role of the Trashcan Man in the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s post-apocalyptic 1978 novel, which was debunked by Ezra Miller's shocking first look as that very character. Now, The Stand's executive producer Josh Boone personally addressed the Manson rumors to set the record straight.

While conjecture suggested that Marilyn Manson had previously filmed footage for The Stand, he was reportedly never actually up for the role of the Trashcan Man — a role that was officially offered to (and accepted by) Fantastic Beasts franchise actor Ezra Miller. However, the rumors did have some grain of truth to them. According to Josh Boone, Manson was approached about playing The Kid, a minor antagonist from the unabridged version of Stephen King's novel. Here’s what The New Mutants director told EW:

Well, there you have it! While Josh Boone would have welcomed Marilyn Manson’s involvement on The Stand, it turns out the Grammy-nominated musician never filmed any scenes for the role at all. It is definitely unfortunate that Manson’s schedule, combined with the series’ limited budget, meant that neither he nor The Kid could make the cut.

Television productions are tricky and complicated to put together, so not everything Josh Boone & Co. hoped to include made it into the series. Of course, The Kid isn’t very essential to the main narrative, so his absence won’t make that much of a difference. However, it would’ve been pretty cool to have seen Marilyn Manson take on the role, since it's high time he showed up in a Stephen King adaptation. Better luck next time, I suppose.

All that said, it's also a shame that Marilyn Manson and Shooter Jennings' cover of The Doors’ “The End” won’t be making it into The Stand. Manson confirmed that he'd recorded the song for the upcoming series all the way back in July of 2019, so it’s a bit disappointing that viewers won’t get to hear it at any point in the show. Here's hoping that Josh Boone fulfills his dream to work with the goth singer at some point again in the future. (Manson had a voice role in The New Mutants.)

The Stand is scheduled to premiere on Thursday, December 17 on CBS All Access. The miniseries will consist of nine episodes that will air weekly. For more on what to watch in the meantime, be sure to check out our fall TV premiere guide and our 2021 winter and spring schedule.