Warner Bros. Pictures plans to adapt Stephen Kings massive 1978 novel The Stand into a single film are no more. Instead, attached writer/director Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) reveals to Kevin Smiths Hollywood Babble-On Podcast (via /Film) that hes now looking at adapting the book into four features.
I really wanted to do an A-list actor, really grounded, credible version of the movie I sold [Warner Bros.] on a single, three hour movie So what happened is the script gets finished, I write it in like five months. Everybody loves it. [Stephen] King loves it. $87 million is what it was budgeted at. Really expensive for a horror drama that doesnt have set pieces They came back and said Would you do it as multiple films? and I said Fk yes! So I think we are going to do like four movies.
Previously adapted as a television miniseries in 1994, The Stand tells the story of a full-scale apocalypse, driven by the accidental release of a biological weapon and the ensuing struggle of good versus evil carried out by the worlds final survivors.
I loved my script but I was willing to drop it in an instant because youre able to do an even truer version this way I cant tell you anything about how were going to do them or whats going to be in which movie. Ill just say we are going to do four movies, and were going to do The Stand at the highest level you can do it at with a cast thats going to blow peoples minds. Weve already been talking to lots of people, and have people on board in certain roles that people dont know about. Were looking to go into production next year, maybe in the spring.
Previous reports suggested that Academy Award-winning actor Matthew McConaughey was being sought to play the storys villain, the demonic figure Randall Flagg. Apropos of nothing, Kings book itself makes a brief-but-memorable cameo in the stars latest, Christopher Nolans Interstellar.
