As 2020 progresses, it's pretty clear that this year has in fact been written by Stephen King.
There's a megalomaniacal idiot in charge of the largest economy in the world - that's 'The Dead Zone', clearly - and we're in the middle of a global pandemic - which is 'The Stand', by all accounts. Throw in a few references to clowns, maybe a weird subplot or two, and you've got a Stephen King book.
In fact, to make things all the more weirder, the upcoming TV miniseries adapted from 'The Stand' has completed filming and is now in post-production. The best part? It completed filming just as the pandemic hit and productions shut down in the US.
Speaking to /Film, series director / executive producer Josh Boone said that it's either the best time or the worst time to make something like 'The Stand' for TV. "It’s one of those things. Will you be pandemic-ed out by then? But so much of it isn’t really about that. It’s so much more what comes after," Boone said.
As previously reported, King himself wrote an all-new finale, while Boone directed the first and last episode of the miniseries. As for his influences, Boone name-checked two directors for the series that couldn't have us more excited. "(We) thought about like 'Close Encounters' and the way those Spielberg movies felt in the ‘70s, and crazy Oliver Stone movies in the ‘90s. Kind of merging those things to tell this epic, dark fantasy. I think it’ll be really cool."
As well as this, Boone also talked about how his adaptation compares to the '90s miniseries that starred Gary Sinise, Rob Lowe and Molly Ringwald, particularly with how violent the novel is and how tame the original miniseries was. "The main thing we have going for us that the original didn’t have going for it is that we can really do it at a really high level in terms of the R-rated content and things like that which just weren’t possible then," Boone explained.
If you've ever read the book, you'll have an idea of what's in store. It's... yeah, it's rough. No air date has been set as of yet, however the miniseries will land in the US on CBS All Access, meaning it will be on either Amazon Prime or Netflix over here.