If you've seen Stuck in Love, then you know Josh Boone is a huge Stephen King fan. The author has a key voice cameo in the film and his novel IT is discussed passionately on more than one occasion. While Boone has been writing a big screen version of The Stand, he's now focused on adapting another, more recent, King novel: Revival.
Deadline reports that Boone is set to direct and has written the screenplay for a feature film adaptation of Revival, King's 2014 novel about a preacher's dangerous dealings with the healing powers of electricity—a nerve-jangling journey witnessed by his younger assistant. The completed script is now awaiting the green light at Universal, with Boone hoping to hit the gas pedal on the project and begin filming later this year with backing from producer Michael De Luca.
Prior to turning his attention to Revival, Boone was (and still is) working on a screenplay adaptation of King's The Stand—no small feat, as the unabridged edition packs over 1,100 pages between the covers. To include as many characters (and character development) as possible from the book's massive cast, Boone is planning on creating a three-hour, R-rated feature film.
The writer/director has penned a part specifically with Nat Wolff (Paper Towns, Stuck in Love) in mind and has "verbal commitments" from other actors to play roles in the project. Boone is still intent on making The Stand, but filming Revival is now at the top of his priority list.
According to Deadline, Warner Bros.' option on The Stand has expired, putting the ball back in CBS Films' court. Previously, both studios were negotiating with Showtime on a potential eight-part miniseries that would lead up to Boone's feature film, but no official agreements were made to move that project forward.
The Stand was previously adapted for the small screen as a four-part ABC miniseries that aired in 1994. Mick Garris directed the miniseries, which featured a cast including Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Rob Lowe, Jamey Sheridan, and Corin Nemec.
We’ll keep Daily Dead readers updated on further details regarding the adaptations of Revival and The Stand. For those unfamiliar with these books, we have their official synopses and cover art below:
Revival synopsis: "A dark and electrifying novel about addiction, fanaticism, and what might exist on the other side of life. In a small New England town, over half a century ago, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. The men and boys are all a bit in love with Mrs. Jacobs; the women and girls feel the same about Reverend Jacobs—including Jamie’s mother and beloved sister, Claire. With Jamie, the Reverend shares a deeper bond based on a secret obsession. When tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, this charismatic preacher curses God, mocks all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town.
Jamie has demons of his own. Wed to his guitar from the age of 13, he plays in bands across the country, living the nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll while fleeing from his family’s horrific loss. In his mid-thirties—addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate—Jamie meets Charles Jacobs again, with profound consequences for both men. Their bond becomes a pact beyond even the Devil’s devising, and Jamie discovers that revival has many meanings.
This rich and disturbing novel spans five decades on its way to the most terrifying conclusion Stephen King has ever written. It’s a masterpiece from King, in the great American tradition of Frank Norris, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe."
The Stand 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 Abagail-and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man."
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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