8 Alternative Endings To Stephen King Novels That Were Originally Planned

King's 823-page post-apocalyptic opus received a massive boost in relevancy these past few months, what with the story's tale of a world-ending plague having an uncomfortable poignancy in light of the current situation (stay safe everybody) along with an upcoming CBS All Access miniseries to be directed by Josh Boone and starring James Marsden, Amber Heard, and Greg Kinnear (release date TBD).

But before all that, when King was still writing the novel inbetween bouts of writer's block, he penned an epilogue that didn't see the light of day until 12 years after initial publication.

The proper ending sees big baddie Randall Flagg, a dark sorcerer building a cult of followers in the post-apocalypse, caught in a nuclear explosion that kills him and all his disciples. Later two survivors, Stu and Fran, contemplate the future of humanity.

"“Do you think … do you think people ever learn anything?” She opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, fell silent. The kerosene lamp flickered. Her eyes seemed very blue. “I don’t know,” she said at last. She seemed unpleased with her answer; she struggled to say something more; to illuminate her first response; and could only say it again: “I don’t know.”"

It's what Alison Flood at The Guardian called "bleak, but honest" and generally in keeping with the severe but ultimately idealistic tone of the rest of the novel.

However, King's cut epilogue, which finally saw public eyes in The Complete and Uncut Edition published in 1990, is less so. It reveals Flagg somehow survived the explosion and teleported away at the last second, winding up on a remote island in the Southern Hemisphere populated by "primitive; simple; unlettered" people. Flagg immediately begins recruiting new adherents and starting anew.

A much less ambiguous and far more blatantly-cliffhanger ending to be sure, and uncertainly not without resolution considering Flagg's consistent later appearences in King's other works, particularly the Dark Tower series. Notably however, it wasn't featured in the 1994 ABC miniseries written by King himself, after it had already been published.

This isn't even King's only alternate ending to The Stand. According to that same article by Flood, the final episode of the upcoming CBS series (written by King himself) will feature an all-new coda that King's thought about for 30-odd years. As he said on his Twitter in August of last year:

How this new ending will play out, and whether or not it will be well-received, remains to be seen, but it would seem to indicate King has an almost George Lucas-like predilection for revising his own stories after they've already been finished.