Those hoping to see Josh Boone’s long-gestating adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand anytime soon will have to keep waiting. But wait, there’s a positive to the deliberation, especially for fans of Maine’s finest: the young filmmaker and screenwriter will, instead, adapt his latest novel, Revival.
According to Deadline, Boone has already penned a draft of the 2014 best-seller “on spec and in concert with producer Michael De Luca and author Stephen King.” The script is in the hands of Universal, which has a first-look deal with the property, and if all goes to plan, he could start filming this year.
Revival follows a charismatic preacher named Charles Jacobs, whose life is turned upside down when he loses his wife and child to an unfortunate accident. Abandoning his faith, Jacobs starts ruthlessly experimenting with the powers of healing, gaining notoriety while also unlocking all sorts of evil.
(Read: Behold! The Stephen King Cinematic Universe)
So, what the hell happened to The Stand? In the same report, Deadline indicates that while Boone remains “determined to make that film, and has practically set a cast, with verbal commitments,” the option over at Warner Bros. has “run its course” and “reverted back to CBS Films.”
In other words, limbo, limbo, limbo. Still, Boone sounds like the right guy to be playing ball on King’s court. Not only does he have a storied history with the author, but he also has a proper grasp on his narratives and tones:
“King did the haunted house thing better than anyone in The Shining, and what he does so well is, he invests you in these characters with all their mundane lives and all the things people think about and worry about,” Boone tells Deadline. “Only then does he introduce a supernatural element and those characters are so beautifully built that you are willing to go with it.
(Read: The 10 Best Stephen King Film Adaptations)
“The movies based on King’s books that don’t work so well are the ones that don’t take the heart of the characters that beat in the books,” he adds. “I’m a huge John Carpenter fan, but on Christine, there’s an aching sadness and deep character development in the book that’s just not in that movie. What I’d like to do is Anthony Minghella-depth adaptations of King’s books, if that ambition makes sense.”
Here’s hoping that ambition lasts.
