Doug Liman Set to Take on Stephen King's THE STAND for Paramount Pictures — GeekTyrant
There's no script yet, which means we're still in early development territory. But Paramount reportedly sees this project as a high priority and is 'moving forward aggressively to make it happen.'
That's no small task considering the unabridged version of King's novel clocks in at a hefty 1,153 pages. Boiling that sprawling narrative down into a single film is going to require some serious narrative triage.
I'm not sure they will be able to effectively pull it off and make a great film. I don't think even a trilogy would work for this story! It's just so big and so epic. The story's scope, jumping between dozens of characters and timelines, has made it notoriously difficult to contain in a single format.
Originally published in 1978, The Stand remains one of King's most ambitious works, a vast tale of good versus evil set against the backdrop of a deadly pandemic that wipes out most of the world's population.
Previous attempts to bring it to the big screen have fallen apart, with directors like Ben Affleck, Scott Cooper, David Yates, and Josh Boone all attached at various points before eventually stepping away.
While the book has been adapted for TV twice, first as a 1994 ABC miniseries and again as a 2020 limited series for Paramount+, no one has quite cracked the code on a successful feature-length version.
This new film marks Liman's first collaboration with Paramount. Lately, he's been keeping busy in the streaming space with Apple TV+'s The Instigators and Prime Video's Road House remake. He also has a working history with producer Tyler Thompson, having last teamed up for 2017's American Made , which reunited Liman with his Edge of Tomorrow star Tom Cruise.
Will Liman finally be the one to bring The Stand to the big screen in a way that actually works? We'll have to wait and see how the adaptation takes shape.
Source: Variety
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