Stephen King's 2020 Standoff (Topic)

There are few people who are not familiar with one of Stephen King's main creations, Opposition. Those who were too lazy to read the book could listen to it as an audiobook. But whoever was not satisfied with the length of 60 hours of proofreading could just watch the six-hour miniseries based on the novel.

We suspect that in our hectic time of general total employment, for many, everything was limited to the third option. Therefore, we will talk about it and its differences with the new version.

Stephen King's Confrontation in Brief

The novel describes the real viral apocalypse . Caused by a strain of an extremely tenacious and contagious influenza virus that escaped from secret laboratories of the Ministry of Defense, the total extinction of people swept around the world in a matter of weeks. Only a few were able to survive, whose organisms had the innate ability to create antibodies in themselves capable of resisting the virus created by the warriors in their underground laboratories.

Subsequently, the survivors gather first in small groups, and then - in more numerous "communes". As it should be according to the terms of the genre, there are two such mass camps - one includes the "bad guys", the other - good people. The distribution of survivors to the camps is carried out according to the method of "prophetic" dreams, inspired for the bad - by a certain "son of the devil" Randal Flagg, for the good - 108-year-old old lady from Nebraska, mother Abigail.

Everyone dreams of both, and only the person himself, based on the quirks of his character and mindset, chooses which camp to join. Some believed that the evil would be stronger and proceeded to the gathering center in Las Veggas. Others were in favor and joined the Boulder Free Zone.

Between the groups, confrontation was brewing for a long time, which sooner or later was to result in a major clash and mutual destruction. But the forces of good found a loophole to keep their people intact by sacrificing only a handful of moral leaders.

Briefly about the differences between King's Confrontation and Mick Garris's 1994 series

The novel itself Stephen King is good because the pandemic is described in it with 100% reality. People behave exactly like people, without any characteristic contradictions and other things. If a person is an idiot, then he is shown to be an idiot, without any outbursts of sanity, and if a person is really smart, he will be smart to the end, without plunging in places into the abyss of "slow-thinking", "stupidity" and sudden movements in the direction of "moving away from morality ".

But based on the six-hour timing of the four-part mini-series, shown from May 8 to 12 by ABC channel, it can already be assumed that in the process of adaptation the story has undergone total reduction. Because of this, the characters of the characters became not so transparent and voluminous, some personalities, such as, for example, "Kid", who mocked the near pyromaniac "Trash can" or an elderly woman drug addict named Rita who died as a result of Larry Underwood's oversight. excluded from the narrative, as if they did not exist at all. The writer cut and cut, destroying three quarters of the book like Marvel's Thanos snapping his fingers.

That is why the last miniseries did not win the proper support from the average viewer. We are completely silent about admirers of the literary creation of the master of horrors.

On the new film adaptation of Stephen King's Confrontation

A new, this time - a 10-episode version of the series directed by Stephen King's "Confrontation" by Josh Boone, has already been filmed and is undergoing post-production. It is expected to premiere on CBS's new streaming service, CBS All Access, December 17, 2020.

His most prominent original projects are Star Trek: Discovery, Why Women Kill, and The Good Struggle.

In the first film adaptation of Stephen King's "Confrontation", I remember that the main characters were played by the following persons:

• Stu Redman - Gary Sinise;
• Franny Goldsmith - Molly Ringwald;
• Nick Andros - Rob Lowe;
• Larry Underwood - Adam Stork;
• Harold Lauder - Corinne Nemec;
• Tom Cullen - Bill Fagerbakki et al.

The roles of Randal Flagg and Mother Abigail went to Jamie Sheridan and Ruby Dee, respectively. At the time of filming, in the image of 108-year-old Ruby Dee turned 72 years old. The current cast will look like this:

• Stu Redman - James Marsden, whom viewers know from his role as Cyclops in X-Men and Neil Oliver in Route 60;
• Frannie Goldsmith - Odessa Young, who has shone in only a few significant projects and is almost unknown to the general public;
• Nick Andros as Henry Zaga, more extra actor than movie star;
• Larry Underwood - Jovan Adepo (African American !!! Where can we go without modern "tolerance"), hitherto an actor of supporting roles in series;
• Harold Lauder as Owen Teague, who has never played a leading role;
• Tom Cullen as Brad William Henke, actor and producer, who has been busy with background roles and others so far.

For the role of Randal Flagg, Alexander Skarsgard was called here, and 65-year-old Whoopi Goldberg, who is primarily familiar to the public from the film "Ghost", was taken on the role of 108-year-old mother Abigail. It is also noteworthy that the role of Glen Bateman, a friend of Stu Redman, here went to Greg Kinnair, familiar to the general public for such resounding roles as, for example, the role of gay artist Simon Bishop in "It Can't Be Better" and trainer Dick Vermeil in "Overcome". And the role of Nadine Cross was played by Amber Hurt, aka Bach Miller from Never Give Up. Let's take a look at a teaser for a multi-part movie recently posted online by CBS.

Nothing is clear, but already something that gives reason to wait while most projects were blown away by the coronavirus pandemic.

By the caste, it is clear that at least Rita Blackmore, Larry Underwood's first girlfriend, with whom he began his long journey from New York before meeting Nadine Cross, was exactly resurrected in this version. It is also clear that more screen time will be devoted to the past of Mother Abigail herself. Yes, and there should be much more details in this version, because even if we take into account that each episode without screensavers and titles will be 50 minutes of screen time (we proceed from the total length of the episode as in "Start Trek" - 60 minutes), ten episodes in aggregates will last at least 8 and a half hours, up from the previous six.

Who knows, though. MaybeCBS is going to have a fantastic sequel drama.

Conclusion

The new film adaptation of Stephen King's "Confrontation", if it is not shifted "left or right", which in our coronavirus time does not surprise us too much, will be an excellent New Year's gift for film lovers.

Let's look forward to the premiere. In the meantime, as usual, there will be more movies and TV shows on the Internet!

The Topic of Article: Stephen King's 2020 Standoff.
Author: Jake Pinkman