Prepare your brains for a 4-film adaptation of Stephen King’s epic tome!
Keeping up with the movie adaptation of Stephen King’s classic The Stand has been rough, to say the least. We’ve seen countless directors come and go before landing on the unlikeliest of choices, Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone. Despite there only being two feature films to his name, Boone turned out to be an impressive choice as he was the only director able to successfully write a one-film treatment for King’s novel that was so good it actually landed him the job in the first place. The only question everyone had, though, was whether or not he could truly adapt the story into a single film and do it justice. Apparently he could, but it came at a price. $87 million dollars to be exact.
Speaking with Kevin Smith on his SMODcast, Boone talked about his adaptation and the budget that went along with it:
I really wanted to do an A-list actor, really grounded, credible version of the movie and they hired me…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 the book and get everything into that movie script…So what happened is the script gets finished, I write it in like five months, everybody loves it, King loves it, it was budgeted at $87 million.
It turns out that Warner Bros. wasn’t exactly ready to take that big of a gamble on just a single movie. Which makes sense when you think about it, considering The Stand isn’t something you can market very easily—especially if it’s going to retain the hard R-rating that Boone had originally planned. So, after turning down the $87 million budget, the studio gave Boone the option to turn his adaptation into multiple films. Four of them. Yes, really.
“I loved my script, but you are able to do an even truer version that way. I will just say we are going to do four movies and we are going to do THE STAND in a way that is going to blow people’s minds.”
Fans have been scratching their heads over the idea of The Stand being turned into only one film, so this outta get just about everyone on board. Will all four films be rated R? When it was just a single film that was the original plan, so I’d be surprised if that has changed, although we don’t know for sure at the moment. All in all, regardless of rating, a four-film treatment of Stephen King’s The Stand is almost too good to be true. And although it’s ambitious as hell, I like that Warner Bros. is investing this much into Boone’s vision and allowing him to bring this classic story to life on the big screen. Now if only those rumors of Matthew McConaughey being eyed for the role of Randall Flagg turn out to be true…
themissingreel.com 
This is excellent news for this adaptation. There is no way in Hades that you turn such an epic story into one little fart of a movie. Four films should be just right.
Definitely! Not only that, but if Boone was able to make something worth while out of one film, imagine what he can do with four. Should be awesome!
Reblogged this on Horror Spot and commented:
Stephen King. “The Stand.” A film about it. What’s your take on this?
This sounds exciting. I still would have loved to see what George Romero would have focused on had he made this movie in his prime.
I appreciate that Boone was able to create a 1 film script that seems to have pleased a lot of people. I’m not looking for an adaptation to have everything, just to tell the story and not feel rushed. Would the four films all be 3 hours?
The benefit of making it four films should give Boone more time for his script to breathe, so I doubt they’ll be that long each. It almost sounds like they could have just made it two movies with the way Boone had it all set up for a single film. Should be interesting!
I have to say I’m very happy to hear this. I’m not normally a fan of films stretching too long but The Stand is prime material for a such a thing. Here’s hoping McConaughey does do Randall Flagg. He would be superb in that role.
Agreed. The Stand has so much attention to detail with its characters that one film just wasn’t going to cut, regardless of how good Boone’s first script was. They’re definitely going to have to get a guy like McConaughey for that role, that’s for sure.
Yay. Make it 6 😀
I’m cool with that!