'The Stand' to have an eight-part preceding Showtime mini-series before Josh Boone's new movie

With 1152 pages at their disposal, Stephen King's The Stand has a lot of story to condense into a single feature film, and as Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) directs Warner Bros. upcoming film adaptation it looks as though they'll need to jump on the smaller screen first to tell the whole tale.

In an ambitious new move, The Wrap reports the studio will give King's book a preceding eight-part mini-series to accommodate the eventual new movie, which will serve as something of a wrap-up/big screen climax. Boone, in addition to writing and directing the new movie, will also helm and pen the eight episodes for the limited Showtime series.

The deal comes from Warner Bros. and CBS Films. Plans are to start filming early next year as one big, cohesive production. Earlier reports speculated efforts to bring in an A-list cast, and it hasn't changed even with the extended shoot in place. With HBO's big success with True Detective, and how fruitful House of Cards has been for Netflix, it looks as though more high-profile actors want to get on the tube. CBS Films' involvement is the reason why this project is going to Showtime and not HBO, even though Warner Bros. has a deal with the pay cable station. At one point Matthew McConuaghey was rumored to be playing Randall Flagg, the primary villain, but it's unclear if he's involved.

This is similar to what Sony hopes to do with a different King property The Dark Tower, as it was revealed last month they were picking up the long-in-the-making project with plans to tell its story with features and TV series continuations. Nikolaj Arcel, the screenwriter behind the Swedish The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and director of A Royal Affair, is slated to helm the first movie in the series as of this week.

King is involved in some capacity with this adaptation of his 1978 novel, alongside producers Roy Lee and Jimmy Miller. This is also not the first time the novel comes onto the small screen, as the book as adapted into a mini-series back in 1994, starring Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald and Rob Lowe.

The Stand has a long history with the studio, as David Yates, Ben Affleck and Scott Cooper all signed on then left the project over the years. Boone joined February 2014, and it looks as though he's going to finally make it happen. Even before this mini-series announced, it looked as though Warner Bros. was game to let the filmmaker spread his work out, as plans to have four movies based on the book was considered before plans changed to become a TV series/movie hybrid.

Even with this massive undertaking, Boone keeps his sights on the future. In addition to this, he also agreed to make the X-Men spin-off The New Mutants and another adaptation, one of Anne Rice's Prince Lestat: The Vampire Chronicles for Universal.