By Drew Dietsch
| Published
Stephen King is my favorite author. It’s always been a pretty good time to be a fan of his works and also a giant movie dork because King’s stories are continuously getting studio feature adaptations.
And this year is looking like an absolute standout for his filmography. My favorite film of the year so far is Osgood Perkins’ The Monkey, a wild interpretation of King’s short story of the same name. We’re also getting movies in 2025 based on two of my all-time favorite King novels (written under his pseudonym Richard Bachman), The Long Walk and The Running Man.
And if those films’ trailers are honest representations of their final products, it’s going to be a banner year for us Constant Readers.
Which is why the announcement of a new film adaptation of The Stand is arguably the dumbest and most deflating Stephen King movie news that could ever happen.
M-O-O-N, That Spells Dumb
Doug Liman has been revealed as the director for a new studio film adaptation of Stephen King’s epic and landmark novel, The Stand. When this was recently announced, it immediately conjured up all the reasons in my mind why this was a bad idea as opposed to a good one.
First off, making The Stand into a movie immediately raises red flags for fans. The story is a sprawling epic that needs a lot of time to tell its tale. Trying to condense so much of the novel’s character work and plotting into a feature film length format is a daunting and inherently flawed endeavor. Even if they split the film up into two parts (which is what I’m expecting), it’s just the wrong format for a story that is so dependent on lots of in-depth character interactions over a significant period of time.
Not to mention that Doug Liman’s involvement is also dubious when it comes to potential quality. It’s not that Liman is an unavoidably bad or uninteresting director, but I will argue that he’s past his prime. His last worthwhile flick was over a decade ago and Edge of Tomorrow’s direction is not what makes that flick an enjoyable cult favorite. And I guess everyone is collectively throwing Chaos Walking and Road House into a memory hole, which I can’t argue against.
Let The New Kids Play
Look, The Stand is a phenomenal story and certainly deserves an adaptation that will do it justice. Granted, the 1994 miniseries may not have aged well but it’s wholly commendable for doing its absolute best to deliver a faithful adaptation. And though we’ve seemingly (and correctly) abandoned the 2020 limited series, it sure looks like The Stand has already had a few bites at the cinematic apple.
Part of what makes this year so exciting for King fans is seeing the stories that haven’t gotten a proper shake before. The Long Walk is a film that has been trying to get made for decades. The Monkey is a short story that had never seen the light of the silver screen before now (no, I’m not acknowledging The Devil’s Gift/Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders). Yes, The Running Man got made into an Arnold vehicle and I love its brand of lunkhead charm, but it is exceptionally far from the actual story of the novel. Edgar Wright’s film is giving the Bachman novel its first shot at being properly represented and translated into a movie.
Dropping the bomb of “We’re doing The Stand! …Again!” in the midst of a year with so many fresh Stephen King adaptations is a moment that doesn’t read the room. There are any number of hypothetical unmade King projects that would have fans flipping out if a film adaptation was announced. Oh, Karyn Kusama is making The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon? Ecstatic! LAIKA announced a stop-motion feature of The Eyes of the Dragon? Stupendous! There are still so many King stories that haven’t made their way to the screen, so getting another riff on The Stand is a betrayal to those potential projects.
Make Your Stand
If Doug Liman’s The Stand does end up happening, I sincerely hope I’m wrong about it. I hope it’s the best adaptation yet and is so good it makes Misery look like Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace. I won’t get my hopes up but I will allow the possibility of it being a worthy third riff on the book.
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but The Stand is actually one of King’s stories that I think is best at home in its original medium. It’s not something I think of as obviously cinematic. Not that it can’t be but it’s a yarn best threaded through the written word on the page.
They are going to make The Stand no matter what I write on the Internet so I can only pray it turns out interesting. But I’ll be over here refreshing the news to see if I can anticipate a Stephen King movie I haven’t seen done before.
