CBS All Access' The Stand Photos Reveal First Look at Star-Studded Cast

CBS All Access’ The Stand photos reveal first look at star-studded cast

The first official The Stand photos from CBS All Access‘ highly-anticipated limited series adaptation of Stephen King‘s post-apocalyptic dark fantasy novel have been released, providing us with our first look at the star-studded cast’s characters including Whoopi Goldberg’s Mother Abigail and Alexander Skarsgård’s Randall Flagg. Check out the photos below! (via Vanity Fair)

#THESTAND FIRST LOOK: Alexander Skarsgård, Whoopi Goldberg, and more unite for a new spin on @StephenKing‘s legendary novelhttps://t.co/caoOYMJppM

— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) May 20, 2020

In an interview with the outlet, showrunners Benjamin Cavell and Taylor Elmore have also opened up about the upcoming miniseries, revealing its overall theme throughout the episodes. “It’s about the fundamental questions of what society owes the individual and what we owe to each other,” Cavell said. “Over the last however-many years, we have sort of taken for granted the structure of democracy. Now, so much of that is being ripped down to the studs. It’s interesting to see a story about people who are rebuilding it from the ground up.”

Cavell and Stephen King have also addressed the show’s timely story and eerie similarities with the world’s current situation right now. “It was very surreal, obviously, to start to realize that there was a creeping pandemic the way there was at the beginning of our show,” Cavell added.

“When you hear reports that 100,000 or 240,000 people are going to die, you’ve got to take notice, and it is going to be bad. It’s bad right now,” King said. “It’s brought the economy to a complete stop. In a lot of ways, I mean, you see the pictures of Times Square or London, and you say, ‘It really is like The Stand.’”

The 9-episode series adaptation of Stephen King’s novel from writers Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars, The New Mutants) and Ben Cavell (SEAL Team), reveals that this is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death. And here is the bleak new world of the day after, a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides — or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abigail — and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.

The Stand will feature a star-studded cast that includes James Marsden (Westworld) as Stu Redman, Amber Heard (Aquaman) as Nadine Cross, Alexander Skarsgård (Big Little Lies) as Randall Flagg, Greg Kinnear (As Good as It Gets) as Glen Bateman, Whoopi Goldberg (Nobody’s Fool) as Mother Abigail, Odessa Young (Assassination Nation) as Frannie Goldsmith, Nat Wolff (Paper Towns) as Lloyd Henreid, Henry Zaga (The New Mutants) as Nick Andros, Jovan Adepo (Overlord) as Larry Underwood, Owen Teague (IT) as Harold Lauder, Brad William Henke (Orange Is the New Black) as Tom Cullen, Daniel Sunjata (Rescue Me) as Cobb, a new character, Katherine McNamara (Arrow) as Julie Lawry, Eion Bailey (Band of Brothers) as Teddy Weizak, Hamish Linklater (Legion) as Dr. Ellis and Heather Graham (The Hangover) as Rita Blakemoor.

King wrote the 10th and final episode of the series, which will reportedly include a new “coda” to the story that wasn’t part of the author’s novel. Boone will also direct the series for CBS Television Studios. Boone, Roy Lee, Jimmy Miller, Richard P. Rubinstein, and Cavell will executive produce. Will Weiske and Miri Yoon will co-executive produce with Owen King serving as producer.