Ben Affleck To Direct Stephen King’s ‘The Stand,’ But NOT Act In It

Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’ was about what would happen if a government-manufactured superflu escaped into the world. And Warner Bros. wants Ben Affleck to write and direct it.

‘The Stand’ is one of Stephen King’s longer books. So long in fact that it is split into three parts: ‘Captain Trips,’ ‘On The Border’ and ‘The Stand.’ It has lots of pages in small type. Plot exposition, foreshadowing and a billion other commonly used elements of story-telling.

Were Affleck to star, it would be a tragedy of epic proportions (his acting, not necessarily the story).

David Yates and Steven Kloves, the director-writer pair responsible for the last few ‘Harry Potter’ movies, were originally tapped to take on ‘The Stand.’ Yates and Kloves would have been perfect since they’re used to doing multiple-film stories and ‘The Stand’ would, most likely, require more than one movie to adequately relay the tale.

But then something happened, publicists stopped taking phone calls and the rumor mills started saying Ben Affleck is now helming the enterprise.

Affleck my not have much experience with something of this magnitude, but the dude knows how to use the camera to tell a story. This scene from ‘Gone Baby, Gone’ proves just that.