Harry Potter director David Yates looks set to take a Stand

With his wizarding adventure drawing to a close this past month with the release of the billion-dollar grossing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, director David Yates now looks set to turn his attention to another novel, Stephen King’s post-apocalyptic epic The Stand. Yates, whose four Potter outings – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and 2 – have pulled in almost four billion dollars at the global box-office, is set to reunite with screenwriter Steve Kloves (who penned all of the Potters barring Order of the Phoenix), with HitFix reporting that Warner Bros. are close to finalising a deal with both parties.



Originally published in 1978, The Stand sees approximately 99.4% of the world’s population killed by a ‘superflu’ virus known as ‘Captain Tripps’. As society breaks down, two groups of survivors emerge – one of which is lured to the ‘Free Zone’ of Boulder, Colorado by a spiritual leader known as Mother Abigail, while the others are drawn to Las Vegas, Nevada by the demonic Randall Flagg.



In the 1980s, Stephen King planned to write a screenplay for a theatrical adaptation directed by George A. Romero, only for Warner Bros. to back out of the project. The novel finally made its way to the screen as a six-hour mini-series directed by Mick Garris (Sleepwalkers, The Shining, Riding the Bullet, Desperation) in 1991, with a cast that included Rob Lowe, Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Ossie Davis, Miguel Ferrer, Corin Nemec, Matt Frewer, Laura San Giacomo and Jamey Sheridan.



According to the report, Warner Bros. are looking at a multi-part film series (read trilogy) and an official announcement should be due in the very near future. So, with Yates and Kloves reuniting, could we expect to see the likes of Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson following suit?