Josh Boone's "The Stand" Adaptation Is A 4-Film Epic?!!

Josh Boone ("The Fault in Our Stars") appeared on Kevin Smith's podcast Hollywood Babble-On and talked about another film adaptation of a famous book he's been working on author Stephen King's "The Stand".

The 1152-page novel, first published in 1978 and then revised in 1990, is divided into three parts and begins with a pandemic that leads to the death of an estimated 99.4% of the world’s human population. The book chronicles the cross-country odysseys undertaken by survivors who are drawn to Boulder, Colo., and Las Vegas, where they end up fighting the Antichrist-like Randall Flagg.

Boone re-wrote the initial movie script as one three hour, R-rated film that got Warner Bros very excited about the project.This is said to be the first script ever "approved" by King

According to Boone the suits were ready to sink more than $87 million bucks into the film...And then...

"They came back and said "would you do it as multiple films?" and I said "f**k yes!" I loved my script, and I was willing to drop it in an instant because you’re able to do an even truer version that way. So I think we are going to do like four movies. I can’t tell you anything about how we’re going to do them, or what’s going to be in which movie. I’ll just say we are going to do four movies, and we’re going to do The Stand at the highest level you can do it at, with a cast that’s going to blow people’s minds."

Boone offered he following production update:

"We’ve already been talking to lots of people, and have people on board in certain roles that people don’t know about. We’re looking to go into production next year, maybe in the spring."

Boone is the latest to hover around the project after the departure of "Crazy Heart" and "Out Of The Furnace" director Scott Cooper. Cooper vacated the job over "creative differences," after conning on to re-write "The Invasion" and "Blood Creek" scribe David Kajganich's draft--and direct the project earlier this year after Ben Affleck dropped out. Kajganich has also worked on the screenplay for the long thought of-feature film adaptation of King's It. David Yates and Steve Kloves, who worked on the Potter series together attached to the project. Paul Greengrass was even rumored in the mix at one point to put the story on film.

Boone told THR recently that he's writing a part specifically for "Stars" co-star Nat Wolff, making this the third project the duo will have worked on together following "Stars" and the upcoming film adaptation of author John Green's book "Paper Towns" 

Jimmy Miller and Roy Lee are still slated to produce.

There was that six-hour mini-series adaptation in 1994 in which Jamey Sheridan played Flagg. Marvel produced an acclaimed Comic Book adaptation.

Boone is also linked to a film adaption of author Anne Rice best-selling novel series "The Vampire Chronicles" in development at Universal and Imagine Entertainment.