Over the last five years or so, Warner Bros. has been tentatively discussing plans for a movie remake of Stephen King’s flu-based apocalypse novel The Stand, with initial plans involving a four-movie series based on the book’s three main acts. There was even talk of Matthew McConaughey playing main villain Randall Flagg, which was bolstered by the fact that he was eventually cast as The Dark Tower’s Man In Black—who, as dedicated Stephen King fans know, is actually the same guy as Flagg. Last we heard, the project had stalled while director Josh Boone worked on other things, including the X-Men spin-off New Mutants.
Now, a story from occasionally accurate Hollywood rumor site The Tracking Board has suggested that The Stand is not only still happening, but that Boone is now developing it as a “10-hour limited series at CBS All Access.” In other words, The Tracking Board believes the project will live on as a streaming series, and while the report doesn’t say anything about Matthew McConaughey’s involvement, it seems unlikely that CBS’ streaming platform would have the necessary budget to get him on board (especially after how lousy The Dark Tower was).
We won’t know for sure about any of this until Boone is done with New Mutants, though, which the Tracking Board story says is undergoing some changes. It has been delayed multiple times, most recently to August of 2019, but the site claims that this is all so Boone can push the movie to be the true horror story he always envisioned. Also, a cameo from Jon Hamm at the end of the movie—in which he would supposedly be playing longtime X-Men villain Mr. Sinister—has reportedly been cut in favor of a new last-minute villain played by Antonio Banderas.
New Mutants is still relatively far off, but hopefully we won’t have to wait too long before figuring out what’s really going on with both of these projects.