Can somebody tell me exactly how the TV version was toned down? In what ways? I never read the book.
Well the TV version was just bad on so many levels. Too many. It was cheesy as hell, and looked like it. And as my quote below Sawyer is right, this film needs an epic feel to it. There really is no epic battles, but the landscape of America needs to be captured, and some of the descriptions King gives of it is wonderful.
As for toned down, the corpses and the plague was much more devastating to people then what the TV show showed. As well as a lot of gore and destruction by Flagg in his "various forums" the whole entire scene with The Kid is some what sexual, and pretty bloody by the end. Lets just say its a King book, things are explained in much more graphic detail. There was lot more sex and gore is really what I should sum that up as lol. And much more swearing.
But the TV series was terrible. Ya Gary was decent in it but I think he was not given much. Just cheap is the word I think of when I think of the TV series. Read the book. Much better.
I think whoever ends up directing this has alot to learn from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. One of King's inspirations in writing the novel was Tolkien's trilogy, and I think that should translate from the literary versions to the film versions. The Stand should have that same grand scale that Jackson's trilogy had.
America = Middle Earth

Ya, I was thinking about this. I just re-read the book in the past few months, and just put it down. Thinking about a lot of things they should do.
They need to show massive landscapes, I still love how King has such a way with words on describing sunsets, the stars and so forth. However this film will not be "epic" like LOTR. I mean there really is no massive battles. The most CGI/SFX will be that of cities post plague and Flagg himself, well and the ending. But other than that I don't think there will be massive epic battle scenes like some believe there would be in a film like this.
But they do need to grab the epic scope.
As for casting, I'm more wondering who they could get to play Harold and Larry. Those two were terrible in the TV series (well they all were) but I felt they were misrepresented on screen really bad. But yea Sawyer I would love to talk casting of this film after just finishing the book again.
I think Jake Gyllenhaal would be a good Stu as King said. I actually would like to see that. As for Fran, I always imagined Natalie Portman for some reason. Even though she is really popular right now again, I just always felt she could portray a strong yet fragile woman like Fran.
With Flagg, I keep imagining Guy Pearce for some reason. I think he would play a great one. Speaking of Flagg though I think they really need to play more on the darkness of his face, and how it almost "shifts". Don't use the wardrobe of from the TV series. I would chose dark jeans, and a duster for him most of the time. But I would like to see him in the priest robes that some claim to see him in. And of course lets see more wolves. But I think Guy Pearce would have the "smile" that I always imagine Flagg to have.
For Glen, I imagine Stanley Tuuci oddly enough, I just guess the "Bald" thing in the book always gets me thinking that.
Ralph I imagined as David Morse, he seems friendly and nice, and just has that persona I imagined Ralph to have, the nice guy that is always there.
I always thought of
Steve Buscemii as the Trashcan Man.
Other than that I have not really thought of a good cast for, Larry, Nick, Harold, and Tom they stump me the most. M-O-O-N that spells stumped.