The Stand includes a cast of more than 125 speaking roles and features Gary Sinise, Miguel Ferrer, Rob Lowe, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Jamey Sheridan, Laura San Giacomo, Molly Ringwald, Corin Nemec, Adam Storke, Ray Walston, Ed Harris, and Matt Frewer.

The scattered survivors include would-be rock star Larry Underwood, deaf mute Nick Andros, Frannie Goldsmith and her unborn child, her teenaged neighbor Harold Lauder, imprisoned criminal Lloyd Henreid, and "Trashcan Man", a mentally ill arsonist and scavenger.

Larry then meets a school teacher named Lucy Swann, and a traumatized boy she calls Joe, outside Des Moines, Iowa, which has burned to the ground.

Flagg sets up a brutal autocratic regime in Las Vegas which he rules with an iron fist, with the intent of defeating the Boulder survivors using salvaged nuclear weapons, which he sends "Trashcan Man" out to find.

Three Boulder survivors are chosen by the Free Zone Committee to infiltrate Las Vegas as spies: Tom, Dayna Jurgens, and Judge Farris.

Harold and Nadine plant a bomb in Frannie and Stu's home using demolition dynamite, planning to set it off during a meeting of the Free Zone Committee.

Before she dies, Abagail tells Stu, Larry, Glen, Ralph, and Frannie that God commands that the men must travel by foot to Las Vegas to confront Flagg, but one of them will fall along the way.

She realizes that she has made a terrible mistake and tries to escape, but Flagg declares it is too late for her to turn back, reveals his true demonic form, and rapes her.

As Larry and Ralph endure a show trial on Fremont Street, Flagg uses his powers to silence a dissenter, striking him with a ball of plasma energy emitted from his fingers.

"Trashcan Man" arrives at that moment towing a stolen nuclear warhead with an ATV and showing signs of radiation poisoning, so Flagg orders Lloyd to kill him.

Lucy reveals that she is pregnant with Larry's child, and Joe sees a spectral image of Mother Abagail, as she blesses the newborn baby.

[2] While King initially didn't think of the novel being worthy of a film version,[3] Romero's reason was the amount of traveling he could do, as the novel takes place in several locations;[4] and the story's relevance to social issues.

[5] King recalled in a 1980 interview of Hollywood middlemen being skeptical of Romero's idea of The Stand becoming a feature-length picture for the content's huge scale.

[7] In the summer of 1979, talks began between Romero and Rubinstein, and they came up with an idea of how to fund it independently: by producing Creepshow, a low-budget original film that would create a huge profit[2] and increase Laurel's credibility.

[8] Warner Bros. initially wanted King to do a single, two-hour script, but he ended up turning in a screenplay that was over 400 pages (equivalent to six hours in length).

[2][9] Dario Argento stated in a 1983 interview that he was once approached to direct a film version of The Stand but rejected the offer due to a lack of interest in working on adaptations.

[11] Despite Romero's initial excitement,[4] he grew increasingly distant from the project due to the poor box office performance of King films in the 1980s and conflicts between him and Rubinstein leading him to leave Laurel.

[17] As King put it simply, there was "too much story for a movie," and yet he was skeptical about making a TV version of the book because "you can't have the end of the world brought to you by Charmin toilet tissue.

"[16] In June 1992,[17] King figured that a miniseries was a way to present most of the novel's contents without having to deal with the other broadcast Standards and Practices regular television shows face.

[26][27][28] Steve Johnson recalled Garris' ideas of a possible Flagg actor to be "a bit against normal kinds of view points in casting.

[26] Whoopi Goldberg was approached by the casting team for Mother Abagail, but couldn't take the role as she was working on Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993).

[42] However, the effects crew who were working on dead body dummies in the cells were unaware of this on the first day of shooting at the location and assumed it was an unused wing.

[42] Johnson's team XFX did Abagail's age makeup, Flagg's demonic heads, the Trashcan Man's burn make-up, 60 dummies of the dead bodies, and facial hair controlled with electrostatics.

[28] For the scarecrow form, Johnson was initially skeptical to create one due to the idea of it being "kind of silly" and attempted to persuade Garris not to include it.

[28] The two ultimately decided to produce a "rotted" version of the scarecrow, meaning the stitching of the fabric, as Beeler put it, "makes it appear as if it has scars all across its face that are coming apart at the seams with dust and sawdust falling out whenever it speaks.

[28] The radiating contact lens used on the eyes were previously made by XFX for the film Innocent Blood (1992);[28] while a light-emitting diode palate for the mouth was created by Rick Baker colleague Mark Setraikien and triggered via wires under Sheridan's make-up.

[36] Then, on a greenscreen stage in Las Vegas, he was filmed doing the exact same action with makeup on, the camera set at precisely the same angle and character distance as the original shot.

[56][57][58] The Stand was first released on DVD as a "Special Edition" in the United States on October 26, 1999, which contains only a Dolby Digital 2.0 audio-mix of its original language, and no subtitles.

[64] When The Stand was included on an unnamed September 25, 2007 DVD set that also featured The Langoliers (1995) and Golden Years (1991), Dolby Digital 2.0 Spanish and mono Portuguese dubs were added.

[66] On June 12, 2018, it was part of another King adaptation collection that included The Langoliers, Golden Years, The Dead Zone (1983), Pet Sematary (1989), Silver Bullet (1986), and Graveyard Shift (1990).