Stephen King’s THE STAND Will Have Four Films!
Back in October, Stephen King was talking about director Josh Boone’s vision of The Stand, and how much he liked his take. He also teased that the movie would be told in a very innovative way and that it might end up being more than one film.
Well, Boone, who directed The Fault in Our Stars, confirmed that in an interview with Kevin Smith on his Hollywood Babble-On Podcast. It seems like Warner Bros. is definitely planning something big. While talking about the film and how it all came together, the director revealed that the studio is looking at adapting this book into four films, which is insanely awesome!
I’m surprised WB would do that, especially since they weren’t even willing to give Ron Howard's The Gunslinger adaptation a trilogy of films. But here’s Boone’s explanation of how this epic film project fell into place. He started off by talking about the first drafts of the script that he was given.
“[Those drafts] were not so much where I thought they should be going with it. [They were] much more like a big summer blockbuster. When I thought about The Stand it’s so much about the vast network of characters, and all their problems. It’s kind of a morality play set in post-apocalyptic America. The battle between good and evil is the battle for these peoples’ souls. They make choices which dictate the fate of humanity.”
He went on to talk about his ideas for condensing this massive book into a single film:
“I really wanted to do an A-list actor, really grounded, credible version of the movie. I sold them on that 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 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.”
I’d love to read the script that he wrote for that. I’m really curious to know how he actually managed fit it all together in only three hours. The studio was looking for a little more, though. They loved the script but wanted all of the things that it was missing, like the set pieces, so they offered Boone something bigger and better.
“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.”
That’s so freakin’ awesome! For those of you who don’t know, Boone is a life-long fan of Stephen King and is a great admirer of his work. The guy loves King’s stuff just as much as I do, and I’m confident that he’s going to be able to give fans an epic and amazing film.
Via: /Film