Stephen King has always been happy to share his film and television recommendations with his million of social media followers, and in a shameless slice of self-promotion, the author is now encouraging people to watch the latest adaptation of one of his books. Of course, he’s more than entitled to do so, but reviews for The Stand don’t exactly mirror the praise being lavished upon it by the originator.
The CBS All Access miniseries has just about secured a Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where it currently sits right on the threshold at 60%. The user rating, however, is at a much lower 22%, but there’s the sneaking suspicion that might have to do with the fact that Amber Heard plays one of the main roles, with Johnny Depp supporters review bombing anything associated with the actress in their kamikaze campaign to defend his honor.
A lot of the Rotten Tomatoes users downvoting The Stand probably haven’t even considered the idea of watching a single episode, but as you can see below, King regards it as one of the better page-to-screen translations of his extensive back catalogue.
I'm loving this iteration of THE STAND. Special kudos to my DOME alumna, Natalie Martinez, and Owen Teague, who was good in IT and really kills it as Harold Lauder. James Marsden…Odessa Young…Alexander, brother of Bill…all so damn good.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) January 16, 2021
Stephen King tends to favor live-action movies and TV shows based on his work that stick closer to the source material, as evidenced by his preferred version of The Shining being the more faithful 1997 miniseries rather than Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 undisputed classic. He also named Storm of the Century as his favorite small screen effort, which was based on an original idea that he wrote exclusively for ABC’s three-part event series.
Regardless, The Stand has been pulling in strong ratings so far with four episodes still to go, and there are well over 20 King projects in the works for both the big and small screen to tide him over for the foreseeable future.
