THE STAND To Be An 8-Episode Series Followed By A Movie

When Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone signed on to direct an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand, he really signed on to make The Stand. Instead of being a big three-hour movie, or even a two-parter kind of thing, this adaptation is going the TV-to-movie route Ron Howard wanted to try for The Dark Tower.

The idea is for an eight-episode The Stand series to hit Showtime (most likely, no deal is in place yet). Instead of ending in a conventional way, it will all lead up to a theatrical film. Boone is expected to write and direct the whole goddamn thing. Shooting is expected to begin early next year and last until early 2030.

I suppose we’ve been creeping toward this sort of massive multimedia storytelling form for a while now, but this is all still pretty weird and hard to imagine, particularly in regards to this property. Where do you switch from TV to theatrical movie? The ending is the worst part. Will the film keep the same aesthetic as the show? Should people who missed the show just stay home and/or go eff themselves?

However it ends up, this seems very likely to actually move forward. Expect casting news to start hitting eventually, and don’t expect any of those people to be in many other projects for a while.