David Yates + The Stand = Happening

Looks like we know what David Yate’s next big undertaking will be. Fables may be on the back burner as the Harry Potter director aims to bring a franchise of Stephen King’s The Stand movies to the big screen. With news from IGN it would appear that Yates and writer Steve Kloves are ready to commit to the project:

With the Harry Potter franchise now finally behind them, the team of director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves are reportedly poised to reunite for a big screen version of the Stephen King saga The Stand.

According to HitFix, the duo are closing deals to bring The Stand to the silver screen as a multi-film adaptation for Warner Bros., the same studio behind the Potter franchise. The Stand is said to be a high priority for the studio.

I hope they don’t drop the ball on this one, but Yates seems to be a capable director so I have faith in him. This is a surprising project to go ahead with for Warner Bros. what with Universal all but stalling on their Dark Tower plans just as it was about to get up and running. I actually think that Yates would have been better suited for the Dark Tower franchise but I’ll take the Stand if they want to make it! Who knows, maybe this will nudge Universal to get their asses back into gear on bringing us the Dark Tower movies once more.

So what’s next? Eventually there will be casting rumors running rampant on who will play all of the key characters in the flick. I’m with Stephen King in believing that Gary Sinise is the only one to play Stu Redman, but maybe he’ll budge on that constraint given that Sinise may be getting a little old to play the character. Also, I think it might be good to see someone else in the role instead of just having to retread the old mini-series from 1994. All I can say is Mark Strong needs to play Randall Flagg because that guy plays one excellent villain (Kick Ass, Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes).