Summary
- 2025 has brought five Stephen King adaptations, including The Long Walk and The Running Man.
- The Stand is considered King's unfilmable magnum opus due to its complexity.
- Director Doug Liman takes on the challenge of condensing The Stand into a feature film.
For nearly five decades now, Stephen King adaptations have been brought to screens both big and small on a seemingly yearly basis. From the incredible (The Shining, The Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me) to the adequate (The Mist, 1408, Christine), from the forgettable (Secret Window, Apt Pupil, Mr. Harrigan's Phone) to the reprehensible (The Dark Tower, Graveyard Shift, Cell), fans of King's work have certainly had their share over the years.
To illustrate just how many Stephen King adaptations we've gotten, take this in: 2025 alone is getting five separate King adaptations. You read that correctly. The Monkey and The Life of Chuck have already hit theaters in 2025, The Long Walk and The Running Man are set to release theatrically later this year, and The Institute television series is set to hit MGM+ in July. It turns out, when you've written 60+ novels and 200+ short stories, as Stephen King has, there is plenty of material for Hollywood to adapt. The Stephen King adaptation train never stops, as a third live-action adaptation of his 1978 novel The Stand is currently in the works with Edge of Tomorrow's Doug Liman attached to direct. Unless Liman's The Stand ends up being one of the longest Hollywood films released in decades, there is ostensibly no way this will work out well.
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Stephen King's latest movie adaptation, The Life of Chuck, is an emotional story starring Tom Hiddleston and directed by Mike Flanagan.
The Stand Is Often Considered Stephen King's Magnum Opus
With The Utmost Apologies To The Dark Tower
First released in 1978, The Stand has become one of the most legendary works in Stephen King's extensive bibliography. The first edition of the book ran an impressive 823 pages. The Complete & Uncut Edition of the book, released in 1990, beefed the story up to 1,152 pages. The updated 1990 version of the story also changed the order of the chapters, bumped the story's setting forward ten years, and altered cultural references made in the original text. The Stand is a post-apocalyptic tale with a large cast of characters, which King claims was inspired by the epic nature of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
In the novel, more than 99% of humanity is killed off by a mutated strain of influenza inadvertently released upon the world by the United States' Department of Defense. As one would expect, societal structures completely collapse, and everything goes to the dogs. It's a rather complicated tale surrounding the themes of good and evil, but King fans will remember it best for introducing Randall Flagg to the masses. Flagg (aka. Walter o'Dim, The Dark Man, and a host of other names) is perhaps best known as the main antagonist of The Dark Tower series, but has also shown up in various King stories like The Eyes of the Dragon and Hearts in Atlantis as well.
The First Two Adaptations Of The Stand Didn't Do The Novel Justice
It Turns Out Famous Faces Aren't Everything
The Stand has been adapted into a television miniseries twice, first in 1994 for ABC and second in 2020 for Paramount+ (then known as CBS All Access). 1994's adaptation was a huge to-do at the time, with King himself writing the four-episode screenplay. The series had a $26 million budget and featured an all-star cast that included Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, Rob Lowe, Molly Ringwald, Kathy Bates, Miguel Ferrer, and Laura San Giacomo (among many others). Although the reviews for the series were somewhat mixed, almost 20 million people watched all four episodes, and the series was nominated for six Primetime Emmys, ultimately winning two.
The 2020 series ran for nine episodes and was a similarly bombastic production featuring a smattering of big Hollywood names. With names like James Marsden, Alexander Skarsgård, Whoopi Goldberg, Greg Kinnear, J. K. Simmons, Amber Heard, Ezra Miller, and Heather Graham, The Stand should've been a major moment for Paramount+. It's clear that the fledgling streaming service felt The Stand could have been their Stranger Things or Squid Game, which would have fueled subscription numbers and garnered internet hype. Instead, it came and went without much muss or fuss.
Doug Liman Is An Immensely Talented Director, But The Stand Can't Be Squeezed Into A Two-Hour Runtime
He's Not The First Director Hired To Film The Stand
With the news coming out that Paramount Pictures has brought Doug Liman on board a feature film adaptation of The Stand, one can't help but wonder just how the winding story with dozens upon dozens of characters will be compressed into a runtime that'll be fit for theatrical distribution. This is a particularly difficult nut to crack, and several directors have tried it in the past. Everyone from George A. Romero and David Yates to Ben Affleck and Scott Cooper has taken a swing at bringing The Stand to multiplexes around the world.
It's unsurprising that Romero (developer of low-to-mid-budget horror films) and Cooper (a prestige drama director) would struggle with studio mandates about the project, but if Yates and Affleck, two men obviously familiar with big budgets and the expectations that come with them, can't hack it, what luck does Liman have? His filmography has some bona fide bangers like Edge of Tomorrow and The Bourne Identity, but he has also helmed a couple of failed franchise-starters in 2008's Jumper and 2021's Chaos Walking.
This Beloved Stephen King Novel Is Becoming A TV Show, But It Actually Needs To Be A Movie
Stephen King has many books that haven't been turned into TV shows or movies yet, and this one memorable and haunting novel would make a great film.
At the end of the day, it comes down to Liman and Paramount finding a writer who can (somehow) whittle The Stand down into a manageable screenplay. This is something that hasn't happened in over four decades, and not for a lack of trying. The Stand has been considered an unfilmable book for years now, at least when it comes to condensing the story into one film. Perhaps The Stand will become a beloved blockbuster film sometime down the line, but it seems quite unlikely.
- Birthdate
- September 21, 1947
- Birthplace
- Portland, Maine
- Notable Projects
- The Shining, Cujo, The Shawshank Redemption, It, Carrie