Director Ben Affleck Takes THE STAND For WB

WB loves director Ben Affleck. Why wouldn’t they?! He gave them Gone Baby Gone and The Town which were box office success, and both movies even gave their supporting actors (Amy Ryan and Jeremy Renner) Oscar nods.
So Deadline reported that WB has hired Affleck, who’s currently working on bringing you ARGO, to adapt and direct Stephen King‘s book, THE STAND…

THE STAND which was previously adapted into TV miniseries back in 1994 starring Gary Sinese, but the story is finally hitting the big screen for the first time.
WB wants this to be a potential franchise because they’re planning it as multiple films.
The author of horror, King himself previously shared 10 opinions about this project, about who he thinks would be great at playing which character, when he actually heard about this remake and ideas and suggestions. He personally thinks it should be a trilogy, not just a one 2-hour film..

Originally published in 1978 and the uncut version was re-released in 1990, the story is about “good vs. evil after a virus wipes out most of the American population”. Here’s the  book‘s official synopsis

“This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death.
And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides — or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abigail — and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.”