‘The Stand’ Adaptation Is On Hold, Companion TV Series Has Been Ditched
And in other Stephen King news…The Dark Tower isn’t the only ambitious and sprawling adaptation that’s been in development for ages. A film based on King’s post-apocalyptic epic The Stand has also been in the works for some time, with The Fault in Our Stars director (and King super-fan) Josh Boone on board to write and direct, and while Warner Bros. and Boone were close to figuring out the best approach for the project, the rights lapsed and Boone moved on to another King adaptation: Revival. The Stand may not be dead (yet), but it is definitely on hold, according to producer Roy Lee.
While speaking with Collider, Lee confirmed reports that The Stand is on hold and that Boone is working on Revival next:
Right now it’s just in a holding pattern trying to figure out how to best make the movie because we’ve toyed with breaking it up into multiple movies, making it into one, making it into two. The latest draft, Josh Boone had written it and he was very anxious to make it but since then has written another script, Revival, which he’s gonna do beforehand, so we’re just waiting for that.
There had been talk of a companion TV miniseries that would debut before The Stand hit theaters, but Lee says that’s no longer the plan:
There was definitely talk about doing that but the logistics made it very difficult to try to do a worldwide launch of a movie when the TV component would not necessarily be released at the same time worldwide. So it became a logistic nightmare to try to figure that out, so that plan was abandoned.
And although Boone previously said that his screenplay covered a total of four films (hence the companion series idea), it seems like his script has been reduced, as Lee reveals that The Stand is now written as two films — but they’d like to see if they can get it down to one (insert wild, cynical laughter here):
That’s why we’ve been experimenting with trying to see what the one movie would look like. If you do the one movie, you obviously have to take out a big portion of the book, so trying to balance what to keep and what to cut out was a long process because there’s so much to go through. So that’s why it’s been a long process. Right now it’s written as two movies.
WB’s rights to The Stand recently lapsed and went back to CBS Films, which will either team with another studio to produce the film or they’ll finance it themselves. In the meantime, Boone is working on Revival, with Samuel L. Jackson in talks to star as one of the lead characters, a preacher who has fallen from his faith and whose hobby of messing with electricity becomes a dangerous obsession.