The Stand: Alexander Skarsgard's Stephen King Villain Takes Center Stage in New Teaser

To celebrate the 42nd anniversary of Stephen King's landmark novel, The Stand, which terrified unsuspecting readers when it landed back in 1978, CBS All Access dropped a quick new teaser on social media to hype its upcoming 9-part adaptation of the book starring James Marsden, Greg Kinnear, Whoopi Goldberg, Amber Heard, Ezra Miller, Heather Graham and Alexander Skarsgard. From The New Mutants' Josh Boone, The Stand is a supernatural epic that takes place in a dystopian future where 98% of humanity's been decimated by a plague and the remainders are embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil. The fate of mankind rests on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abagail (Goldberg) and a handful of survivors. Skarsgard, seen in the tease here, plays famous King villain Randall Flagg - aka the "Dark Man" - a demonic figure who's been featured in nine of King's books, including the Dark Tower series.

42 years ago today, Stephen King gave us #TheStand. On December 17th, his classic book comes to life as a new limited event series, only on #CBSAllAccess. pic.twitter.com/p0KCDkV5kp

— CBS All Access (@CBSAllAccess) October 3, 2020

The first episode of The Stand will debut Thursday, December 17 on CBS All Access. New episodes of will continue to air weekly every Thursday, including a brand new finale storyline written by King himself. Back in April, star James Marsden revealed his pandemic binge list to IGN, and The Stand was one of his picks. For more Stephen King morsels, find out all the novels you need to read (including The Stand) to fully appreciate the Dark Tower saga. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-stephen-king-remake-so-far&captions=true"]