We’ve been tracking the progress on a new adaptation of Stephen King‘s, The Stand, for some time now. Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) has been hard at work on the script and was able to get the film green lit at an epic three-hour movie. Little did he know, Warner Bros. had other things in mind, and are interested in splitting the book up into multiple films.
Check out his conversation with Kevin Smith on his Hollywood Babble-On podcast to learn more:
“I sold them on a single, three hour movie. I went and got [Stephen] King sold on it, everybody’s really excited…I told the story non-linear and that was the way I was able to compress that book and get everything into that script. You open with Mother Abigail dying and sending the guys off, and then you jump back in time… So what happened is the script gets finished, I write it in like five months, everybody loves it, King loves it, $87 million is what it was budgeted at, really expensive for a horror drama that doesn’t have set pieces.”
But then, Warner Bros. extended an entirely unexpected offer:
“They came back and said “would you do it as multiple films?” and I said “fuck yes!” I loved my script, and I was willing to drop it in an instant because you’re able to do an even truer version that way. So I think we are going to do like four movies. I can’t tell you anything about how we’re going to do them, or what’s going to be in which movie. I’ll just say we are going to do four movies, and we’re going to do THE STAND at the highest level you can do it at, with a cast that’s going to blow people’s minds. We’ve already been talking to lots of people, and have people on board in certain roles that people don’t know about. We’re looking to go into production next year, maybe in the spring.”
Four films with a stellar cast? I’ll take that out of my Stand adaptation. Could make for a much better film series than say, Twilight, or these other films that are milking a franchise for too long. As more news comes down about The Stand, we’ll be sure to keep you posted here at DFAT!
