Paramount is taking another crack at Stephen King’s The Stand

Sure, the nine-episode miniseries was a dud, but maybe Doug Liman can spin Stephen King’s 1,200-page epic into a single, enjoyable film.

By Matt Schimkowitz  |  June 24, 2025 | 7:46pm
Photo Cr: Robert Falconoer/CBS
Film News The Stand
Paramount is taking another crack at Stephen King’s The Stand

Captain Trips is making a comeback. Per The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount is moving forward with another adaptation of Stephen King’s beloved contagion fantasy, The Stand, with Doug Liman attached to direct. Liman, coming off last year’s streaming double feature of Amazon’s Road House and Apple TV’s The Instigators, has already made one entry into the post-apocalyptic canon, Edge Of Tomorrow. However, The Stand is a sprawling epic that has already been adapted twice for television. The first arrived in the mid-’90s and starred Gary Sinise, landing when television was overloading on King-based miniseries. The second was more of a prestige effort, with a sprawling star-studded cast that included James Marsden, Whoopi Goldberg, Alexander Skarsgård as Randall Flagg, and Ezra Miller as Trashcan Man, which needs to be seen to be believed.

The Stand is King’s attempt at making a Lord Of The Rings fantasy epic that follows a dozen characters as a bio-weapon breaches containment and wipes out 99.4% of the Earth’s population. As the survivors begin to travel west, a dark supernatural villain named Randall Flagg comes to power and wreaks havoc on what remains of humanity.

As for this latest Stand, Paramount has not yet announced a screenwriter, but they’ll have their work cut out for them. Hollywood Reporter says that this Stand will be a single film, a tall order that doomed the last epic King adaptation, The Dark Tower, which is best remembered for that afternoon when Matthew McConaughey and Idris Elba tweeted at each other.

We’re living through a golden age of King adaptations, led mainly by Mike Flanagan, whose latest, The Life Of Chuck, is currently in theaters. That might make one wonder why Flanagan isn’t involved with The Stand. It’s probably because he’s working on another adaptation of The Dark Tower. Ironically, pulling a reverse Stand, the next Dark Tower will be for television.

 
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