I’m surprised it took them this long to figure out that a movie adaptation of Stephen King’s THE STAND would only really work as multiple films. Four to be exact. At least that’s what FAULT IN OUR STARS director Josh Boone is saying. Keeping up with this adaptation has been a hell of a ride so far with 100 directors dropping out of the project before finding a glimmer of hope in Boone, who somehow originally condensed King’s classic tome into just a single film. Apparently, that’s how he got the job.
In talking with Kevin Smith on his podcast Hollywood Babble-On, Boone sheds some light on how they went from making just a single film into what will now be a four-film epic.
"I really wanted to do an A-list actor, really grounded, credible version of the movie and they hired me…I sold them on a single, three hour movie. I went and got [Stephen] King sold on it, everybody's really excited…I told the story non-linear and that was the way I was able to compress the book and get everything into that movie script…So what happened is the script gets finished, I write it in like five months, everybody loves it, King loves it, it was budgeted at $87 million."
$87 million is a shit-ton of money for any film, especially one like THE STAND because the studio is essentially taking a huge gamble on it—even more so if it's going to have a hard R-rating like Boone originally planned. It's not exactly the easiest movie to sell to audiences either, which is exactly the reason why the studio denied the budget. With that budget thrown out the window for just a single film, they offered Boone the option of making THE STAND as multiple films. In other words, shit just got real.
“I loved my script, but you are able to do an even truer version that way. I will just say we are going to do four movies and we are going to do THE STAND in a way that is going to blow people's minds."
With only a couple of films to his name, Boone is showing some real promise with how he has been able to handle King's story so far. And although it sounds like he was really dialed in on telling THE STAND as a single film, imagine what he can do with four. Now if only the rumors of Matthew McConaughey being eyed to play the iconic villain, Randall Flagg, in Boone's adaptation prove to be true…