James Marsden: The Stand mirrors current Coronavirus outbreak

James Marsden is finding that filming The Stand might be hitting too close to home amidst the current Coronavirus outbreak.

James Marsden is filming CBS All Access’ adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand on location in Vancouver. As every fan of the bestselling author knows, this particular story deals with a military engineered super virus that wreaks havoc on the Earth’s population leaving a pocket of survivors.

The actor who is playing the lead role of Stu Redman is finding that maybe the production is hitting a little too close to home at the moment. According to Variety, Marsden believes “We’re in full panic mode right now,” because of the Coronavirus. Just like the scenes in the book, the minute someone coughs or sneezes people make them feel like pariahs.

All the descriptions of “Project Blue” (which is the name for the virulent strain in King’s novel) sound extremely familiar. When a person is infected, the initial symptoms are similar to the common cold. However, this “super flu” is able to mutate and change rapidly so trying to combat it with serums is futile.

In this case, it would seem as if art is imitating life. At present, the mortality rate for the Coronavirus is 3.4% according to the World Health Organization as of March 3. Even though The Stand is timely, we won’t be seeing it anytime soon, unfortunately.

Since all things Stephen King are in vogue right now, the show should perform well for CBS All Access. There is no release date for the limited series at the moment. However, it would be a good marketing move to have it available by Halloween.

Joining James Marsden in the cast is Whoopi Goldberg, Amber Heard, Jovan Adepo, Alexander Skarsgard, Nicholas Lea, Katherine McNamara, Heather Graham, Greg Kinnear and Olvia Cheng.

Are you looking forward to James Marsden in The Stand? Do you think that there are similarities between Project Blue and the Coronavirus? Let us know in the comments.