Alexander Skarsgård and Whoopi Goldberg Join ‘The Stand’

Whilst their names have been doing the rounds for awhile, CBS All Access’ adaptation of The Stand has finally nailed down actors  for it’s two biggest roles. Alexander Kkarsgård and Whoopi Goldberg have now both been confirmed to be going head to head as Randall Flagg and Abagail Freemantle (aka Mother Abagail ), for the 10 hour long show.

Collider was first in with the news that Alexander (Brother of Bill Skarsgård who plays Pennywise in IT!)  had won the role, whilst it was Whoopi herself who confirmed her role. Goldberg, who hosts ABC’s The View, was with Stephen King on his latest book promotion, where he dropped several new cast members, alongside some other cool stuff about the upcoming series! 

King announced Jovan Adepo (The Leftovers) as Larry Underwood, Owen Teague (Bloodline) as Harold Lauder, Brad William Henke (Orange Is the New Black) as Tom Cullen, and Daniel Sunjata (Rescue Me) as Cobb. Whilst James Marsden (Stu Redman), Amber Heard (Nadine Cross), Odessa Young (Frannie Goldsmith), and Henry Zaga (Nick Andros)) have already been confirmed to star in the new adaptation of King’s epic tale.

“It’s has been in my mind for 30 years”

**Spoilers Below**

Other news is that King has written the last episode himself, with a change to his original novel. What makes this interesting, as chronicled in his non-fictional book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, is that he struggled to find an ending to The Stand, and only by killing off half the core cast, could he finally find the ending he needed.

He recently tweeted that his script for the final episode is already written, and that it “has been in my mind for 30 years”. King wrote

“new coda that won’t be found in the book… for fans of the book who have wondered what became of the survivors of The Stand, this episode will contain a story that takes us beyond the book to answer those questions.”

The Stands Original ending was pretty bleak, with Stu and Fran contemplate the future of humanity. With the last passage reading.

“Do you think … do you think people ever learn anything?” She opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, fell silent. The kerosene lamp flickered. Her eyes seemed very blue. “I don’t know,” she said at last. She seemed unpleased with her answer; she struggled to say something more; to illuminate her first response; and could only say it again: “I don’t know.”

Whilst the Complete and Uncut Edition, added an additional ending that Sees Flagg surviving the Las Vegas nuclear explosion and winds up on an island with “primitive” people.

“I was never really total happy with they way it ended.. the main characters Stu and Fran, we never really talk about what happened to them.”

So expect some surprises from the new show when it launches hopefully in 2020.