Earlier this year Ron Howard’s ambitious adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower failed to get a greenlight from Universal, but over at Warner Brothers another epic Stephen King adaptation is starting to take shape. His post-apocalyptic yarn The Stand had been in development as a movie way back in the ’80s but it never came to fruition, instead ending up as a 6-part TV mini-series directed by Mick Garris in 1994. Now they are giving it another chance on the big screen, this time with Ben Affleck at the helm. He’s a somewhat surprising choice for the material, especially considering that it was reported back in July that Harry Potter director David Yates had the gig on lockdown. That being said, I’m certainly not complaining.

Deadline broke the news late in the day that Affleck had gotten the nod from Warner Brothers, but didn’t have much info to add aside from the fact that the studio loves him. And why wouldn’t they? The Town made $150 million worldwide and also earned rave reviews. He’s currently shooting his third film, Argo, for Warner Brothers as well.

It’s still unclear if The Stand would be Affleck’s next project, as he has a ton of other things on the go, including the first-person perspective thriller Line of Sight (also set up at Warner Brothers). It’s also unclear who will write the screenplay since Steve Kloves was originally supposed to reteam with Yates on the project. Either way, I’m very curious to see how Ben Affleck handles the end of the world. What do you think, is Affleck an inspired choice to adapt The Stand? Can such a massive book work as a single feature film or is it probably doomed to failure?