Stephen King's The Stand coming to the big screen

Stephen King's The Stand has been adapted for TV once before back in 1994, earning multiple Emmy awards and nominations. But is King's massive, post-apocalyptic story ready for the big screen treatment? CBS Films and Warner Brothers are counting on it, and have partnered up to bring The Stand to theaters.

CBS has owned the rights to the adaptation for some time, and had been negotiating with multiple studios to hammer out a joint venture. Writers are being sought after to begin the process now, which isn't going to be easy. As much as I liked the TV mini-series, it left a lot of elements and characters on the cutting room floor, and that was with I think four episodes and Stephen King assisting on the script.

Basically The Stand involves a plague which wipes out the majority of Earth's population. Some of the survivors, including a woman named Mother Abagail, begin having visions of an evil being known as Randall Flagg, and unite to stop him. There's a lot more to it than that, believe me.

I feel about The Stand the same way I do The Dark Tower in that negotiating a story this size is going to be Hell. As of now there's no clear plan on how the film will be structure, but I can only see it as a multi-film project. 3 or even 4 hours simply isn't going to be enough to satisfy anyone.  Marvel Comics has been doing a bang up job adapting The Stand into graphic novel form since 2009, so check those out if you're not up for tackling the 800+ page novel. The latest uncut version is over 1100 pages. That would take me a lifetime, to be honest.

Thanks to THR for the details on this story!