THE STAND Gets Its Randall Flagg And He Is Swedish

Header photo by Gage Skidmore, used w/ permission via Flickr

Looks like it’s The Stand day. We just (and I mean JUST) learned about a whole bunch of cast members, some brand new, some known but only confirmed today. Notably absent from that list was Randall Flagg. Well, I guess that was so he could have articles of his own. Like this one!

The Powers that Be have deemed that Randall Flagg shall be a heartthrob type. In doing so, they have cast Alexander Skarsgård to play the role. I suppose we all have our own ideas of who and what Randall Flagg is. Alexander Skarsgård does not line up with mine at all, no matter how creepy he was in Hold the Dark.

The thing about Flagg is that he isn’t creepy. Until he is. Maybe that weird, Flagg charm is a note Skarsgård has been keeping secret from us. Maybe they saw the success of IT and arbitrarily wanted another Skarsgård in a major Stephen King adaptation. It all depends on how cynical you’re feeling.

In any case, we’re stuck with it so start making your peace. I don’t like hardly any of these casting choices. Everybody is too damn attractive. I am at war with attractive people in movies. They’ve had their run of things for too long, I say! Joking aside, the cast so far doesn’t give me much hope for unique character or vision from this version of The Stand. I hope to be proven wrong, however. We’ll just have to wait and see.