With the ambitious adaptation for "The Dark Tower" shut down because of budget concerns, it seems another of Stephen King's epic novels is getting the epic big screen treatment. Rumors of "The Stand" being adapted first began back in February, upsetting fans with the notion that the plot of the 1100-page novel (Uncut edition) will have to be severely cut down to fit a two-hour movie. Today, things are looking a lot better after Warner Bros. announced that "The Stand" will in fact be a three-movie adaptation, which I'm sure is enough to be faithful to the source material. Not only that, but Harry Potter franchise director David Yates, who worked on the last four movies in the series, and writer Steve Kloves, who penned every Potter script, except "Order of the Pheonix", are in negotiations with Warner to join the project. Considering the awesome résumés these guys have and the ton of money they made for Warner Bros., it's safe to assume that they're pretty much locked in. What's cool about Yates and Kloves is that they have already proven their competence when working with novel adaptations and their ability to turn them into something awesome. Also, the dark tone of Stephen King's novel will be a piece of cake for the two, as the last Harry Potter movies in particular were pretty bleak as well.
For those of you unfamiliar with King's epic horror novel, it tells the story of a deadly virus, accidentaly unleashed from a military research facility, that kills most of the world's population, except for a select few, who have to take sides in a post-apocalyptic battle between good and evil, represented by a sweet 108-year old southern black woman, Mother Abigail, and the ageless and sadistic Randal Flagg, The Walking Dude, respectively. The survivors receive visions and dreams as they travel across America to join up with either Abigail, or Flagg. The pawns are set for a deadly game, where only one side can emerge victorious and decide the fate of mankind. Some of you might remember the 1994 6-hour TV miniseries starring Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Jamey Sheridan, Ruby Dee, Rob Lowe and Miguel Ferrer. Even though they had to tone down the violence and truncate some plot elements, it's still widely regarded as a solid adaptation. You can read a review here.
The novel is very dark and brutal and focuses a lot on character developement, which makes a movie adaptation even harder, because of the large number of characters. There's not a lot of action that could translate into a full-blown blockbuster, but it could easily work as an atmospheric thriller, perhaps something not so different from Steven Soderbergh's soon-to-be-released "Contagion", at least in the novel's first half. The question is, will Warner Bros. consider the project worthwhile in terms of cost vs. profit, or will it have the same fate as Universal's "Dark Tower" adaptation, which was also meant to include three movies and two TV series and had big names like Ron Howard set to direct and Javier Bardem to star in the leading role ?
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