Warner Brothers has been trying to adapt Stephen King's 'The Stand' for a while now. First they had 'Harry Potter''s David Yates on the project, then Ben Affleck was on for while before he got busy with other things (like playing Batman), so they brought in Scott Cooper, the writer/director of 'Crazy Heart' and 'Out of the Furnace.' But it's been revealed that Cooper's off the project, so now what?

The Wrap is reporting that Cooper left the project because of "creative differences." There's all kinds of reasons there could be those creative differences as adapting King's tome requires a lot of finesse. The novel runs 823 pages, and follows a large ensemble of characters, which -- when brought to television as a miniseries in 1994 -- was broadcast as four two-hour episodes. Whether this was meant to be a single film or a trilogy is unknown, and if it was meant to span across multiple pictures, the budgetary considerations and the commitment to such a large-form narrative (or fighting to keep it at a greater length) could have all be contributing factors. The Hollywood Reporter is suggesting it was over the rating, with Cooper wanting to make an R rated series, while Warners was hoping for something PG-13.

Regardless, it seems that Warner Brothers is likely to continue pursuing a feature length adaptation of this material, just as they rebooted the Superman franchise twice (and at least one of those times it was successful). And so it's likely we'll hear of a new talent being brought in to make this work in the near future. But for those hoping for a filmed adaptation, it's not going to happen before 2016 at this point.

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