God, there is just no way to post a Stand article without using “take a stand” in some stupid way. So, Deadline is reporting that Ben Affleck is in the lead to direct the mega-budget adaptation of Stephen King’s epic The Stand. This is good news for the film since anyone with any taste knows that Affleck has proven himself to be a director of real promise in the last few years. There is also rumors of him taking a role in the film, like the role of Stu Redman, but we’ll see how this all plays out. The whole thing is being reported as a done deal, but I wouldn’t start buying up all the stock in Affleck Inc just yet, these things have a way of changing suddenly.
For me, The Stand is easily King’s most wildly overrated work, so I would like to see a director of real vision take a crack at this and change what I perceive to be egregious story flaws. I know I’m in a minority here but I have never found the plodding storyline, the black and white morality and the ludicrous deux-ex machina ending of The Stand to be satisfying. Oh, and “The Walking Dude”? C’mon people. He’s about as scary as Don Dokken. But I will be interested if this thing is given a serious overhaul, and Affleck behind the director’s chair is a step in the right direction.
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Well, I disagree with most of what you said about the story, but I will certainly admit the ending is a total cop-out and wildly unsatisfying. I’m really hoping they make some serious changes to the story.
I think you missed the point of “The Walking Dude” – he’s not really meant to be scary in the sense of being a violent monster so much as he has everyone’s number. If someone has a negative self image or a major character flaw they find difficult to suppress, that’s where he engages them.
The thing you hate most about yourself, or the thing you’re most enslaved to in a negative way, he’ll make you believe it’s your most important trait/or he’ll only deal with you on that level. You can choose not to be an asshole or to be defined by that negative thing, but it means you’ll die a sad lonely/isolated, anonymous death. That’s where he operates in the book at least and it’s right in there with King’s more prominent themes of people being at war with themselves and the worst aspects of their nature/personalities.
In a movie, they need to play him kind of like DeNiro’s Max Cady when he’s talking to the daughter and winning her over on the school’s theater stage. He COULD just murder her of course, but it’s far more brutalizing/violating to break down her sense of the world through the twisting of words/language and a sort of predatory intimacy.
I actually find Don Dokken to be absolutely terrifying. Have you heard the man’s music?
Paul Dano for Harold Lauder! And more! Make it happen!!!
http://vimeo.com/m/27566361
I’ve never read the book, and I saw the mini series once back when it was originally on, but I HAVE heard “Among the Living” by Anthrax a few million times, so that’s where most of my knowledge of this Walking Dude comes from…
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