The Fault In Our Stars director Josh Boone has plans to adapt Stephen King’s epic post-apocalyptic novel The Stand into a four-part franchise.
Boone described his vision about the adaptation in an interview with Kevin Smith on his Hollywood Babble-On podcast as “highest level you can do it at, with a cast that’s going to blow people’s minds.”
In the podcast, the director explained how he initially planned to make the adaptation of the novel into a single, three-hour film on a budget of $87 million. Warner Bros. later approached him with a whole new idea of dividing the novel into four separate films. Without hesitation, Boone accepted the offer stating to Smith, “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.”
The Stand, which is considered to be King’s best work, is about a deadly plague that kills off most of the world’s population and splits the remaining survivors into two groups. This results into a final battle between good and evil.
While the novel surprisingly never made it to the big screen, it did receive an eight-hour TV miniseries back in 1994. It was directed by Mick Garris and starred Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Rob Lowe, Miguel Ferrer and Laura San Giacomo.
Matthew McConaughey is rumored to be close to accepting the role of Randall Flagg, a supernatural villain who appears in many of King’s works, for the four-part franchise. However, Warner Bros. has yet to confirm.