While things havent been going so well for New Lines planned big screen take on Stephen Kings IT, the future of Warner Bros. Pictures adaptation of the authors massive 1978 novel The Stand is looking bigger and brighter than ever! According to a story today at The Wrap, the current plan is to, in an unprecedented move, begin the story on television. An eight-part Showtime miniseries, written and directed by Josh Boone, is being eyed, which would set up the story and its characters to culminate in Boones feature film.
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.
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 recently made a brief-but-memorable cameo opposite the star in Christopher Nolans Interstellar.
Boone is said to be a longtime fan of King and even gave the novelist a cameo in his 2012 film,Stuck in Love. Hes also already attached to 20th Century Foxs upcoming X-Men spinoff, The New Mutants. Hes also attached to helm the Universal Pictures project The Vampire Chronicles, based on Anne Rices famous series of novels.
