Why make one movie when you can make four? Josh Boone reveals that his adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand will be split into several instalments.

The Stephen King novel The Stand is a post-apocalyptic horror fantasy, originally published in 1978. A global pandemic has killed off 99.4% the world’s human population, leaving society to collapse while the remaining humans struggle to survive.

The film adaptation of the epic novel has long been in development. First, David Yates was set to helm the project, but he dropped out because he felt it would work better as a miniseries (which, incidentally, already exists).

Then Warner Bros. hired Ben Affleck – but finding himself too busy playing Batman, he passed the mantle to Scott Cooper.

Cooper eventually left the project as well, citing creative differences with the studio. Now, The Fault in Our Stars writer/director Josh Boone has taken the reins, and Warner Bros. has decided to split the movie into four parts.

“I sold [Warner Bros.] on a single, three hour movie,” Boone says, appearing on Kevin Smith’s Hollywood Babble-On Podcast. “Everybody loves it. [Stephen] King loves it.”

But then, “they came back and said ‘Would you do it as multiple films?’ and I said ‘F–k yes!’ … So I think we are going to do like four movies.”

While Boone admits he loved his original script, “I was willing to drop it in an instant because you’re able to do an even truer version this way.”

Splitting films into several parts is all the rage these days, but considering the massive scale of the story and the length of the novel, breaking up The Stand might actually be a good call.

Boone also revealed that they’ve already cast several characters for the project. “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 promises.

The 1994 miniseries starred Molly Ringwald, Gary Sinise and Jamey Sheridan. A graphic novel adaptation of The Stand was released by Marvel Comics in 2008.

In the 1980s, Stephen King himself toyed with the idea of adapting the book for television. But networks struck down the idea, claiming that audiences “don’t want to see the end of the world, particularly in prime time.” Oh, the irony.