If you pick up STARBURST #407 (on sale as of today), you’ll find our preview of Kevin Smith’s walrus-based horror TUSK. Not only is Smith a favourite writer/director of ours, he’s also responsible for his own network of podcasts and TV shows. Now and again, when Smith has guests on these shows, little nuggets of information are sprayed out onto this World Wide Web thingy. As such, today brings word that the long-planned latest attempt at tackling Stephen King’s classic THE STAND is looking like it will actually end up as a four-movie effort.

Speaking on Smith’s Hollywood Babble-On Podcast, Josh Boone, the writer/director of said adaptation, revealed, “I really wanted to an A-list actor, really grounded, credible version of the movie. I sold on a single, three-hour movie. So what happened is the script gets finished, I write it in like five months. Everybody loves it. King loves it. $87 million is what is was budgeted at. Really expensive for a horror drama that doesn’t have set pieces. They came back and said, ‘Would you do it as multiple films?’ and I said, ‘Fuck yes!’ So I think we are going to do, like, four movies.”

Boone added, “I loved my script but I was willing to drop it in an instant because you’re able to do an even truer version this way. 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. 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.”

The basic premise of King’s 1978 novel centres on an apocalyptic world that’s the result of a release of a biological weapon. As ever, a battle of good vs evil ensues between the remaining members of the planet. In terms of names linked to the project, it was previously rumoured that Matthew McConaughey was up for the lead villain of the piece, Randall Flagg.

Expect more on this as it develops.

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