I will say it now: The Stand is Stephen King’s best book. Or, the Complete and Uncut Edition is, anyway. It’s also one of his longest books, and, as we all know, the longer a story is, the more difficult it is to adapt. Well, it seems that Warner Bros. has figured that out and will be reportedly putting director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves on the job. Yates was the director of the final four Harry Potter films, and Steve Kloves wrote the screenplays for seven of the eight films (skipping Order of the Phoenix), giving them quite a pedigree when it comes to long-form adaptations. In fact, this may very well be the best possible team to turn to under such circumstances. Fortunately, rather than trying to shoe-horn the entire film into a single movie, the pair will be breaking it up into several (although the actual number is at present unknown).
Properly capturing the scope of The Stand‘s story will require a big budget and excellent production values. Unfortunately, the TV miniseries was not given those things and fell flat. Hopefully the films will get the backing they need and deserve. I also hope the film is not dumbed down for a PG-13 audience, because that really would ruin it. However, given the rather sexually explicit source material, I do hope it is dumbed down to an R rating and that all the unnecessary sexual encounters are removed from the story. Regardless, this news combined with the Marvel comic series means it is an exciting time to be a fan of the book. If you haven’t picked it up yet, do yourself a favor. It’s awesome, and hopefully this adaptation will be too.
[Via HitFix]
