Production is underway on a new adaptation of Stephen King‘s The Stand with the CBS All Access miniseries set to arrive later this year. News of the show’s ensemble cast has been reported on with frequency as cameras prepared to roll on the series, but another addition has been made to the roster in the form of Cult of Chucky and Dirk Gently star Fiona Dourif (daughter of Chucky himself, Brad Dourif). The 38-year-old actress confirmed the news herself, revealing her character as well, a name fans of the original novel will no doubt know.
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“I’m playing Rat Man,” Dourif told SYFY. “You guys remember Rat Man? Rat Man is now Rat Woman, which is great. I read the book and watched the miniseries. I love The Stand.”
Dourif joins a stacked ensemble cast including the previously-announced James Marsden, Amber Heard, Heather Graham, Odessa Young, Jovan Adepo, Owen Teague, Henry Zaga, Brad William Henke, Eion Bailey, Katherine McNamara, Hamish Linklater, Greg Kinnear, Alexander Skarsgård, and Whoopi Goldberg. Josh Boone (The New Mutants) serves as the showrunner of the series.
The Stand is Stephen King’s apocalyptic vision of a world decimated by plague and embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil. The fate of mankind rests on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abagail and a handful of survivors. Their worst nightmares are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the Dark Man.
“I like [showrunner] Josh Boone’s work, I actually worked with him on his first feature,” King shared on the Post Mortem Podcast. “And then he did The Fault in Our Stars, which I thought showed his grasp of the medium. And I like him a lot. I like his reach… his ambition for [The Stand]. Really the thing I’m most excited about is, first of all, we’ve got two more hours to tell the story. And second, we’re free of all those things that held us back with [the original mini-series]. Not only is the budget bigger… we’re free… in terms of language, in terms of violence… in a way that we weren’t with the original.”
As if a new adaptation of the iconic novel isn’t thrilling enough, King himself has written an all-new epilogue for the story which fans have never seen.
“Had it for years,” King told The New York Times about the new ending. “I always wanted to find out what happened to Stu and Frannie when they went back.”
Stay tuned for details on the upcoming adaptation of The Stand.
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