Stephen King's The Stand Will Have a Showtime Miniseries Tied to the Movie Release

Director Josh Boone will write and direct eight episodes of an ambitious miniseries event based on Stephen King's The Stand, which will culminate with a theatrical feature film, according to TheWrap.

The project doesn't sound entirely unlike what Universal had planned for The Dark Tower, King's epic series of novels which was planned as a series of feature films with a TV show for connective tissue. That project fell through. The idea is that the miniseries format would allow the filmmakers to tell more of the story than even the longest feature film.

A TV miniseries of The Stand, starring Gary Sinise and Molly Ringwald, aired in 1994 and is generally considered to be the best of the numerous miniseries based on King's novels.

The plan is reportedly to have a "star-studded" miniseries, with Boone targeting actors who may not have done television before the relatively recent successes of projects like Breaking Bad and True Detective.

If true, Showtime is setting itself up to be a destination of choice for high-profile genre fiction. Aside from The Stand, the network will reunite co-creators David Lynch and Mark Frost for a new season of Twin Peaks next year.