‘The Stand’ Limited Series Coming to CBS All Access in 2020

Stephen King’s work has had a bit of a renaissance in the streaming era. Now one of his signature works is getting a brand new version.

Speaking at the Television Critics Association press tour on Wednesday, CBS All Access Executive Vice President of Original Content Julie McNamara announced that the service would be ushering in a new adaptation of King’s novel “The Stand,” currently planned for a 2020 release. The novel, first published in 1978, takes place in the aftermath of a global epidemic brought on by a weaponized flu virus.

“With over 400 million books sold around the world, Stephen King is one of our greatest living authors and ‘The Stand’ is widely seen as the jewel in the crown of his work. This epic saga is perfectly suited to a premium streaming execution,” McNamara said.

“The New Mutants” writer/director Josh Boone and “Justified” alum Ben Cavell are currently on board as executive producers, with the series planned to run 10 episodes. Back in 2014, Boone was rumored to be in development on a feature film adaptation (and later planned film series) of the novel. He went on to direct a film version of a very different novel, John Green’s bestselling “The Fault in Our Stars.”

Of course, this won’t be the first TV adaptation of the novel, which first led to a four-part ABC miniseries a quarter century ago. The 1994 version, one of the more ambitious productions in network television history, starred Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Rob Lowe, Laura San Giacomo, Miguel Ferrer, and Ruby Dee.

This new project comes on the heels of two new series confirmed to be coming to CBS All Access before the end of 2019: the legal drama “Interrogation,” starring Peter Sarsgaard and David Strathairn, and the Marc Cherry-created “Why Women Kill.”