is easily the one author with the largest number of movie adaptations to his name, though one of his books in particular never got its just dues in terms of a feature film. For the most part, Stephen King's movies tend to fall into the horror genre, as the famous writer primarily works in the world of spooky stories. However, he does occasionally take a break from his routine style, resulting in movies like The Green Mile or The Shawshank Redemption.

The Stand is one of King's rare non-horror books that truly deserves a bombastic film adaptation. The epic dark fantasy story centers on a massive outbreak of disease which turns the United States into a post-apocalyptic hellscape to be fought over by a variety of factions formed by the survivors, led by mythical figures fated to battle one another. While it isn't strictly speaking a horror novel, it does get quite dark at times, though the primary goal of the narrative is an epic on par with The Lord of the Rings series.

Once upon a time, a movie adaptation that would do justice to The Stand was in the early stages of development. The first incarnation for an idea to turn the sweeping epic novel into a film came in the 1980s, with King planning out a theatrical release working with none other than . King was on screenwriting duty, and Romero had agreed to sign on as director once that project was greenlit. Therein lay the difficulty of getting King's vision to screen.

King actually found himself struggling to translate the massive, over-one-thousand-page-long tome into a feature-length film, soliciting help from screenwriter Rospo Pallenberg. Pallenberg came out the other side of the collaboration with a three-hour script that intimidated Warner Brothers, causing them to back off. Romero was no longer attached, leaving The Stand as one of many unmade collaborations between King and Romero. ABC later swooped in to retrofit the hefty script into a four-part TV miniseries, an idea King became more open to as he grappled with the story's excessive length.

However, this initial draft wouldn't be the only time The Stand made a pass at becoming a genuine feature film. In the early 2010s, Warner Bros eventually circled back to the idea, partnering with CBS Films to develop a feature-length adaptation of the novel once more. Director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves, known for their success with the Harry Potter movies, were signed aboard for a multipart movie franchise that broke the huge book down into a similar series. However, Yates didn't last, believing the story was still best suited for TV.

After a handful of other talent, including Ben Affleck, dropped out of the project over creative differences, a director had finally seemingly been captured with Josh Boone of The Fault in Our Stars fame. Production was underway in 2014, but the plan for a four-part film eventually dissolved into another eight-part TV series culminating in a single movie before fizzling out altogether, the project put on indefinite hiatus. In 2019, CBS ordered yet another TV miniseries adaptation of the book, which premiered in 2020 to mixed reviews.

After festering in development hell before being reincarnated into a TV series not once, but twice, it might seem as though The Stand might not be so well-suited to being a movie after all. But just because the project wasn't able to materialize in either case doesn't mean the story doesn't have potential as an epic film saga with the potential to eclipse the likes of The Lord of the Rings or Dune. , perhaps outside of his The Dark Tower series, which shares a villain with the standalone novel.

Arguably, The Stand is more suited to being a movie due to its massive scope. Taking place over thousands of miles across an empty United States and featuring massive action setpieces well-suited to a movie budget. That's not even to mention the things that get downright supernatural, especially when it comes to the profane powers of the mysterious Randall Flagg, a mainstay antagonist of multiple books in King's work. After all, epic movies on similar scales never work quite as well when confined to the limitations of TV.

It's hard to good-naturedly say that either of the The Stand miniseries were able to accurately grasp the awesome scale of the original story. For what it's worth, the 1994 version is considered to be one of the better of the 90s Stephen King novel miniseries, perhaps just behind the first It adaptation in terms of quality. However, the glaringly small budget and downright monotonous pacing once the dust settles on the superflu's transformative effect on the United States, the simple good vs. evil format of the overlying story simply isn't well-suited to small TV-sized chunks of time.

Meanwhile, on paper, the extended number of episodes, bigger budget, and ensemble cast of the 2020 edition should have led to a better result. However, , full of unnecessary changes that complicated the already sprawling story and a non-linear narrative that feels more like a followed trend than a worthwhile addition to the narrative. This all led to an awkward recital of what should be a profoundly affecting story, once again failing to do The Stand justice.

It's clear that a movie version of The Stand could solve the pacing issues and budgetary constraints of the previous adaptations, so long as it would be allowed to exist as a straightforward adaptation. It's a shame that the original incarnation of the film with George A. Romero fell through, as his control over expansive stories and supernatural events would be well-suited to such a tale. It's hard not to wonder what could have been seeing the finished result of both The Stand series, but hopefully a movie can do justice to 's most ambitious titles someday.