Well, I've got a couple of theories as to why this is being done.
The first, and more obvious one, is due to the previous production and the time it was made. Many people over at the IMDb feel that the actors were terrible in the roles of the film, not to mention the special effects wasn't as great (in fact, this is the same reason why some people dislike the mini-series for
The Langoliers, to which some actually believe deserves more of a second adaptation than
The Stand).
The second one, and this is my guess, is that since
The Dark Tower is being developed into either a possible film/TV series, they're remaking
The Stand as a means of tying more of the film adaptations into
The Dark Tower, much like the novels had. If you recall, the character of Randall Flagg is a character that appears in
The Dark Tower, as well as many other stories set within King's multiverse (the universe of
The Stand is one of many universes that tie into the Dark Tower's existance, and Flagg has appeared in other stores, such as
The Eyes of the Dragon and is it also hinted that he has appeared in a lot more without many people knowing, such as
Hearts in Atlantis). The reason I suspect it to be true is because it has been done with the film adaptation of
The Mist, which the novella ties into
The Dark Tower series (In one of the novels, there's a mention of a Todash Darkness, similar to what the mist is, and the creatures described in it match similar physical descriptions to those seen in
The Mist).
There's a
lot of connections between these multiple universes and the DT series, so it could be possible that now they're wanting to make the films more connected so that people can watch them.
Of course, this is just speculation.
