On Tuesday, CBS All Access announced that the nine-episode series will premiere Dec. 17.
Almost two years after Stephen King teased that the television adaptation of his novel, The Stand, will take viewers to “a world they hope will never happen,” the pandemic-featuring series will make its debut on CBS All Access. On Tuesday, the streaming service announced the nine-episode series will premiere Dec. 17, with new episodes being released every Thursday.
James Marsden and Amber Heard star in the adaptation, along with Whoopi Goldberg, Alexander Skarsgård, Odessa Young, Jovan Adepo, Owen Teague, Henry Zaga, Brad William Henke, Greg Kinnear, Irene Bedard and Nat Wolff.
The series is based on King’s 1978 novel of the same name. Featuring a virus that is leaked from a lab and kills most of mankind, the story is described as King’s “apocalyptic vision of a world decimated by plague and embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil.”
“During the two years we spent making The Stand, we all felt the responsibility of adapting what may be the most beloved work of one of the world’s most beloved storytellers, but none of us could have imagined that Stephen King’s 40-year-old masterpiece about a global pandemic would come to be so eerily relevant,” showrunner and executive producer Benjamin Cavell said in a statement released to ET on Tuesday.
“We’re honored to tell this sprawling, epic story, including a new coda that Stephen King has wanted to add for decades,” Cavell continued. “We’re so proud of this show and its attempt to find meaning and hope in the most uncertain of times. We can’t wait to share it with the world.”
Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) is directing and executive producing the premiere, as well as the finale, which features the new passage written by King.
The project was announced at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in 2019. At the time, King described the world of the novel as one viewers would never want to face.
Little did he know that the coronavirus pandemic would sweep in and take over 2020 before the show debuted.
“I’m excited and so very pleased that The Stand is going to have a new life on this exciting new platform,” King said at the time. “The people involved are men and women who know exactly what they’re doing; the scripts are dynamite. The result bids to be something memorable and thrilling. I believe it will take viewers away to a world they hope will never happen.”
See more on The Stand below.
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