From Entertainment Weekly: Stephen King: 10 things I know about the remake of 'The Stand'



When news broke on Jan. 31 that Warner Bros. is remaking Stephen King’s 1978 novel The Stand, we at EW wondered what our old friend Uncle Stevie thought about the development. We asked, and here’s what he had to say:

1. No one will be able to top Gary Sinise, who played Stu Redman in the original ABC miniseries. He was perfect. When he says “You don’t know nothing” to the soldiers who are putting him under mandatory quarantine, you believe his contempt completely. My runner-up pick would be Jake Gyllenhaal.

2. I didn’t know anything about the remake until I read about it on the Internet.

3. You absolutely can’t make it as a two-hour movie. If it was a trilogy of films…maybe.

4. Molly Ringwald won’t be playing Fran Goldsmith this time.

5. Rutger Hauer is a little too old to play the Walkin’ Dude, and that’s too bad.

6. People who’ve seen Kubrick’s The Shining dislike the miniseries I wrote (and my amigo Mick Garris directed) even if they haven’t seen it. That’s always annoyed me. But the wheel of karma turns! This time people will probably say, “The miniseries was lots better.” BUT…

7. …historically speaking, movie studios blow the budget on things like this, so maybe it’ll be fun to look at. The dough certainly isn’t going to me, although if it is a trilogy, and if it makes a lot of money, I might be able to buy a chicken dinner at Popeye’s. Great slaw!

8. Molly Ringwald will probably not play the Trashcan Man, either, but Billy Bob Thornton would be cool. Billy Bob’s always cool.

9. They need to write in a lot of heavy-metal for the soundtrack.

10. M-O-O-N, that spells “you probably won’t see this anytime soon.” And when you do, Woody Allen won’t be directing it. Or Molly Ringwald.

Rutger Hauer as The Walking Dude would be cool even though I prefer they cast more to the character as written in the book.

Bev_Vincent wrote: Rutger Hauer was okay as Barlow in the TNT Salem's Lot remake.

I have yet to see it. Not really that motivated though.

David Yates, who directed the last four Harry Potter films, has the pick of the litter — or should we say, pick of the literature? — at the studio [Warner Brothers]. The studio's top priority is a multi-picture adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand. Our spies tell us that Yates is flying into town tomorrow, and has been rereading King’s epic-length supernatural classic. We’re told Yates will decide if he wants to do the film sometime in the next two weeks. It is a big commitment, as the studio wants to split the giant book into three parts.



>>> Source

Warner Bros has chosen Ben Affleck to adapt and direct The Stand, Stephen King’s apocalyptic mammoth book. Affleck has become a cornerstone director for the studio, but this would be his greatest challenge yet. Even King has been reticent about the idea of making a feature of his book, which previously was turned into a miniseries. With The Town and Gone Baby Gone, Affleck has shown the grit necessary to handle such an unforgettable tale. It’s early days, but the studio loves Affleck, who’s now directing Argo.



>>> Source

David Yates explains why he withdrew from The Stand

Ben Affleck & 'The Stand': Director Having 'Hard Time' With Stephen King Adaptation



In October of 2011, Deadline.com reported that Ben Affleck was Warner Bros. top choice to direct an adaptation of Stephen King's "The Stand." The news was somewhat shocking in those pre-"Argo" days, if only because some two months earlier, HitFix reported that "Harry Potter" director David Yates was going to take on the project. (Yates never did; instead, he's working on a "Tarzan" adaptation for the studio.)



In January, Vulture reported that David Kajganich ("Invasion") was hired to adapt "The Stand," but precious little has been heard from the Free Zone since, but in a new interview with GQ, Affleck revealed that the film isn't near production just yet.



"Right now we're having a very hard time," he said. "But I like the idea -- it's like 'The Lord of the Rings' in America. And it's about how we would reinvent ourselves as a society. If we started all over again, what would we do?"



While he waits for "The Stand" to get into shape, Affleck is certainly keeping himself busy. He signed up to direct an adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel "Live By Night" in October; that film will probably be his next feature. He's also still working on a script with Matt Damon about mobster Whitey Bulger.



"My guess is honestly, [it'll be] the movie after next," Affleck told The Playlist about the mob movie. "I'll probably find something that's in better shape to do next until we got that one ready, and then we'll go ahead and fire that one up. [...] We're in the process writing it, the script is not ready yet, it needs a lot more work."

'The Stand' Director Wants To Shoot On Location; Will Christian Bale Star?

Writer/Director Scott Cooper speaks about the Stephen King adaptation.



When director Scott Cooper replaced Ben Affleck as writer and director of the Stephen King adaptation "The Stand" for Warner Brothers and CBS Films, you could hear the sound of jaws dropping all over Hollywood. The former actor had one critically acclaimed hit under his belt with "Crazy Heart," but taking on a sprawling project like King's 800+ page novel was another thing entirely.



Since then, Cooper has been relatively mum on the project. But with the multi-hyphenate's second feature "Out Of The Furnace" in theaters this December, MTV News had to ask him for an update during a recent press junket.



Director Scott Cooper Takes On The Daunting Task Of Adapting 'The Stand'

"It's a daunting challenge to take a long novel, a beloved novel, and condense that into a standalone film," Cooper said on the adaptation. "It's a process. There's a reason that film hasn't been made. It's the themes, and the scope, and the size."



The book, long considered one of King's best works, shows what happens when a deadly flu strain nicknamed "Captain Trips" is released, killing most of the world's population. What follows is not just a post-apocalyptic survival tale, but also an epic supernatural battle between good and evil to decide the fate of what remains of humanity. The story has previously been adapted into a critically acclaimed 1994 TV mini-series, as well as numerous Marvel comics.



Despite the big budget trappings, Cooper is hoping to take a very different, much more down-to-earth slant on directing the feature. "My approach, much like 'Out of The Furnace' is searingly realistic [and grounded]," Cooper continued. "That can be a very expensive endeavor, one that maybe doesn't marry with how a movie like that should be shot, just because of the sheer expense."



Adding to that expense would be the sprawling locations of "The Stand's" narrative, which range from Nebraska to Las Vegas, and all over the rest of the United States. Good thing Cooper can shoot on a sound stage, right? Wrong:



"I prefer to shoot on location," Cooper said in response to the idea of shooting in a studio. "It imbues the entire production with a sense of place and authenticity that I strive for. I'm certain that whether consciously or subconsciously it affects the actor's performances, and the crew, quite frankly. It's critical to my process that I shoot not only where I've written the screenplay, but shooting the exact locations I wrote it for."



Cooper isn't just tied to shooting on location, either. He's also formed a strong bond with "Out of the Furnace" star Christian Bale, and hopes to bring him on to "The Stand."



"Well, Christian's a part of everything I'm writing, and I tend to share things with Christian in the infancy stage that I don't share with other people," Cooper said on the prospect of Bale joining "The Stand." "He's become one of my, not just closest friends, but a great collaborator, and wouldn't be surprised to see me and Christian teaming up on many things."



That's certainly far from a confirmation, but for fans of King's novel the prospect of Bale as the villainous Randall Flagg is a tempting one. We'll have more on that tomorrow.



As of now, there is no official release date for "The Stand." "Out of the Furnace" is in theaters December 6, 2013.

The Stand loses another director

Nat Wolff will star in Josh Boone’s adaptation of “The Stand.” Apparently the plans are for a single R-rated film.

Josh Boone says:

I finished writing the script maybe a month ago. Stephen [King] absolutely loved it. It’s, I think, the first script ever approved by him. [It'll be] a single version movie of The Stand. Three hours. It hews very closely to the novel. It was such an amazing process. I’m so familiar with [King's] work and I’ve read so many of his books so many times over the years that it was just a really comfortable thing to be able to work with his material. He gives you so much great material to work with. There’s an abundance of it. So it’s not a book where you have to generate new material and make it work for a movie. He writes so cinematically and his characters are so sharply drawn. You don’t have to change much. [You use] a lot of structural things to condense a thousand pages into a three-hour movie but it’s still at heart his material. I just made it work within the confines of what a single film can be.

I just focused on the things that I felt strongly about, that I have strong memories about, that are evocative to me even when I read it now. You just have an internal interest meter. The Stand is about so many things — you could make ten to fifteen different movies and focus on a different aspect of it. I just focussed on the things that were more important to me and felt essential to me and were based in the characters...It takes a long time to prep a film like that. Six to eight months. I don’t imagine we would shoot the movie until next Spring at the earliest. And we’re still early in the process. I’m still meeting actors and having budget meetings and all that.

Not sure how I feel about this -- Josh Boone is now saying The Stand will be four (4) movies.

Josh Boone has just been attached to a X-Men movie. Not sure how this impacts his involvement with The Stand.   :(

In addition to movie, Warner Bros., CBS Films and writer-director Josh Boone are in talks to mount an 8-part TV series

Before it hits a movie theater near you, Stephen King‘s epic post-apocalyptic novel “The Stand” will take a revolutionary detour to the small screen, as Warner Bros. and CBS Films are in talks with Showtime to mount an eight-part miniseries that will culminate in a big-budget feature film, multiple individuals familiar with the ambitious project have told TheWrap.

Last year, word surfaced that they were thinking of taking the adaptation first to TV, producing an 8-episode limited series that would serve as a prelude to the feature film finale. Now, however, Lee says that idea has been jettisoned:

“There was definitely talk about doing that but the logistics made it very difficult to try to do a worldwide launch of a movie when the TV component would not necessarily be released at the same time worldwide. So it became a logistic nightmare to try to figure that out, so that plan was abandoned.”

Posted on SKMB: Hi, Josh Boone here. I happened to come across this and wanted to say that I never wrote a draft of The Stand with anything but the ending from the book. You are referring to a draft that preceded me, which I actively worked to ensure never got made because it was in no way an adaptation of the book, just fan fiction. I am still working on The Stand and will be making it next as soon as New Mutants opens in April as a limited series. I've been working on it for four years and I promise you it will be a faithful adaptation of the book with an incredible cast.