With the success of Stephen King's IT, the author is enjoying quite the renaissance, which has many wondering what may be happening with the long-awaited adaptation of his 1978 classic The Stand. Now we may have our answer. A new report on director Josh Boone's The New Mutants, reveals that the filmmaker, who has been attached to write and direct The Stand since 2014, is now shaping this project to become a 10-hour limited series on the CBS All Access streaming service. There had been talk that there will be a TV series that leads into the theatrical movie before, but now it seems the project is being entirely adapted for the small screen.

Shortly after writer-director Josh Boone was attached to The Stand in 2014, the filmmaker stated that he planned on turning the 862-page novel into a three-hour, R-rated adaptation, while also claiming that every role will be filled by an A-list actor. There were subsequent reports that the filmmaker was aiming to spread the adaptation out over multiple movies, with a report from November 2014 claiming that this adaptation would span four movies. However, we reported in June 2015 that there will first be an eight-hour mini-series on Showtime that will lead directly into the movie.

The last we heard about The Stand was from Stephen King last September, who said that, "there's talk about doing The Stand as an extended TV series, possibly for Showtime or CBS All Access." It seems that the filmmakers have decided on the latter, although nothing has been confirmed by CBS All Access yet. Still, it seems that they are completely forgoing any sort of theatrical release for The Stand, moving the project to the streaming service. While this would certainly help make the series a more faithful adaptation, with this book spread out over 10 hours of programming, it may be disappointing for fans looking forward to seeing this story unfold on the big screen.

There had been talk way back in 2014 that Matthew McConaughey had been set to star as the villainous Randall Flagg, which was before he would ultimately play that same character in The Dark Tower movie adaptation. The Stand marked the first appearance of Randall Flagg in Stephen King's books, and he would later surface in The Eyes of the Dragon, The Dark Tower novels, Hearts in Atlantis and Gwendy's Button Box. While it's possible that McConaughey still could play Flagg, there has not been any confirmation, especially since it's uncertain what will happen with the planned Dark Tower sequels and its own companion TV series.

Regardless, even if this is being turned into a CBS All Access TV series, we may not be getting it anytime soon. Josh Boone is currently working on The New Mutants, which was initially supposed to hit theaters on April 13, 2018, before being pushed to February 22, 2019 and then most recently to August 20, 2019, with the fillmmaker overseeing what are expected to be massive reshoots. You can head over to The Tracking Board for their full report on The New Mutants, which includes this brief tidbit about The Stand adaptation.