By Brent McKnight | 6 years ago

An adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand has been in the works for what seems like forever. Multiple directors, including Ben Affleck and Scott Cooper, have signed on for the post-apocalyptic project only to later jump ship for various reasons. At times, the adaptation has been envisioned as multiple movies, but according to current director Josh Boone, who is winning acclaim this weekend for teen cancer drama The Fault in Our Stars, it will be a single motion picture. Talking about the film, Boone shared a few more choice details.

Talking to Vulture, Boone dropped some promising information. While we know it is a filmmaker’s job to hype up their ventures, and while we want to get excited as we read what he said, you can’t help but imagine that there’s just a little bit of hyperbole involved, and that he’s saying what he thinks people want to hear. It’s also possible he’s talking about his ideal version of The Stand, and we’ll have to see how this all shakes out when the cameras start rolling and the studios start checking up on their investment.

Here’s what Boone had to say about his next film:

We’re gonna do one three-hour, R-rated version with an amazing A-list cast across the board. Every single one of those characters will be somebody you recognize and somebody you relate to. And it’s gonna be awesome. I’m really excited. It’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever got to do in my entire life. If 12-year-old me had ever known that one day I’d be doing this, to even just go back and look at that kid, I’d be like, Keep doing what you’re doing! It’s just crazy. I’ve met so many actors over the years, and like, when I met Stephen King, I hugged him with tears in my eyes. He meant that much to me when I was young. I still say everything I learned about writing I learned from Stephen King. I don’t read screenplays. I don’t read screenplay how-to books. It’s always just, establish the character. Establish the character.

If nothing else, Boone is certainly pumped-the-hell-up to be making The Stand, and it seems like something of a lifelong dream come true. Again, this does sound a little too good to be true. Like I said, I suspect this is how the adaptation will go in a perfect world if no one turns down the project and Boone gets to do exactly what he wants at every given opportunity, and how often does that happen?

Still, doesn’t that sound like a damn fine time? The Stand, which tells the story of a world in the aftermath of a global plague that wipes out much of the population, is full of memorable characters, and given the names that have been attached in the past, there is obviously a great deal of interest in this in Hollywood. So a big time cast is definitely possible. The extended version of the book weighs in at more than 1000 pages, so even at three hours, there is a significant amount of material that will need to be cut and condensed. With a film of this scale, which will cost a pretty penny, most studios want to hedge their bets and shoot for a PG-13 rating. To do the material justice, that’s definitely going to difficult to do, so if they commit to going R right out of the gate, that’ll save us a lot of time and speculation.

As great as all of this sounds, it does feel a little too great to be entirely true. While this is exactly what we want to see, you can’t help but think maybe this will wind up as an uncut directors version, and a shorter, watered down cut will appear in theaters.