Stephen King’s biggest single work The Stand, a 1,100 plus page novel which grew due to numerous re-publications, is set for a big screen adaptation. The Hollywood Reporter announced the news that Warner Bros and CBS Films will team up to get the film produced and distributed. In the coming weeks the producers and studio heads will interview potential writers and directors looking for who has the most viable angle on the project. So there could be an announcement regarding that in the coming months.
The novel is massive and it will be interesting to see how the creative force will want to attack the material, whether it will be a HEAVILY truncated single movie or a multi-stranded franchise. According to the report, King will be involved in some way with this decision. The story of the film is about a post-apocalyptic America, which has been wiped out by an epidemic virus, where a group of survivors struggles to combat the imposing growth of evil which disturbs their community.
It is a classic good vs. evil tale, that has seen many notable filmmakers attempt to attack the material before. Most famously it was turned into an Emmy-winning TV miniseries for ABC, but in the past George A. Romero attempted to mount a cinematic production which didn’t come to fruition and most recently Marvel have produced a critically acclaimed graphic novel series.
Stephen King is one of the most prolific authors in America, if not the world, and his novels have accumulated nearly 40 screen adaptations (not including TV). With the forthcoming Ron Howard adaptation of The Dark Tower and this, we could see a resurrection of King being placed back into Hollywood system. I’ll be interested to see how they will tackle this, and we’ll keep updated on this forthcoming project.
