I am a huge King fan and I particularly love The Stand. I was very excited for the new miniseries adaptation coming to Paramount Plus last year. It was a great cast and creative team, and was going to be 9 episodes long, which meant they could tell a lot more of the story than in the previous miniseries.

However... it was kind of a dud. They made the absolutely puzzling decision of telling the story out of order, which makes a lot of the events feel pointless and aimless because you're getting a pay off before you get the full set up. It's the equivalent of telling someone the punchline of a joke, then over explaining how you got to the punchline.

They also didn't really tell much more of the story. Huge swaths of the plot were rushed through or completely cut out. It really was a bit of a mess.

But! There's a lot of good stuff in there. So, I'm removing the confusing narrative structure and cutting tons of footage out to create a Trilogy of films that tell the story of The Stand.

Phase IV is a cult sci-fi movie like no other. Often derided as a failed attempt to make an intelligent creature feature, it was to be the only feature film made by famous graphic designer Saul Bass, and is undeservedly grouped in with later 70’s B movie features such as Empire of the Ants, The Swarm and the like. To be truthful, this is similar to saying 2001: A Space Odyssey should sit alongside Battle Beyond the Stars. Paramount didn’t know what they had, and even cut Bass’ remarkable 5 minute montage style ending.