“Do you think he’s still alive?” a man asks a new friend. Then he clarifies: “The Rock?” The pair look down at what the man holds: a copy of, of all things, “Skyscraper.” It’s both punchline and lament, one moment among many in which the characters of “The Stand” confront their new reality. Is The Rock still alive? Probably not. Like 99 percent of humanity, it’s likely that he succumbed to the virus known colloquially as Captain Trips, a government-developed superflu inadvertently unleashed upon the world by a scared man who just wants to keep his wife and kid safe. And as a moment of drama, it’s an unlikely high point in Josh Boone and Benjamin Cavell’s adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal dark fantasy novel. The world ends, and that’s a wrap on The Rock as we understand him; all our old institutions of wealth, fame, and power have crumbled. It’s surreal and sad, a punchline and a moment of grief in one, and then it passes, and it’s time to get back to work hauling corpses.