What comes after Harry Potter? Stand and deliver.

As a team, you've written and directed some of the most colossally successful films in cinema history. What do you do for an encore? As reported earlier this year, Warner Brothers was talking about doing Stephen King's The Stand as a series of theatrical films. Now comes word that David Yates, director of the last four Harry Potter films has signed with Warners (who also did Potter) along with screenwriter Steve Kloves, who adapted all of the Potter books into films.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 has recently become the third most successful movie of all time, so it's very likely that Kloves and Yates have been given complete freedom to do justice to one of the greatest horror epics of all time.

This is making me laugh, as I recently had to traverse the Lincoln Tunnel to go visit the Harry Potter Exhibition in Manhattan! Ironic foreshadowing?

If you don't know why that's funny, then you have some reading to do, as you will never be able to think of that tunnel the same way again, after you've read The Stand.

This is pretty sensational news, as Warners is clearly looking to give this story the deluxe treatment and reap the rewards of a fan-driven box office bonanza. Are you listening, Universal??? 

A while back I started mulling over who'd make a good cast for The Stand these days. Just for fun, here's what I came up with, given who's popular right now...

Stu Redman Timothy Olyphant

Frannie Goldsmith Ellen Page or Mia Wasikowska

Randall Flagg Stephen Lang

Mother Abigail TBD?

Lloyd Henreid Walton Goggins

Harold Lauder Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Larry Underwood Justin Timberlake

Nick Andros Charlie Hunnam

Nadine Cross Evangeline Lilly

Trashcan Man Crispin Glover or Johnny Depp

Glen Bateman Martin Sheen

 

Thanks, Warner Brothers! You continue to be a bastion of commitment and class. This should really be something special.