At one point in its recent development history, The Stand was planning on sending the Harry Potter team of Steve Kloves and David Yates to a cornfield in Colorado to write and direct the incredibly difficult source material. With that team passing on Stephen King‘s novel, Ben Affleck picked it up for a directorial project, and Vulture is reporting that Affleck has hired screenwriter David Kajganich to provide the blueprint. The only problem here is Kajganich’s track record. It’s always difficult to assign blame/credit to writers for a finished film because of the labyrinthine group effort the art demands, but so far his two biggest features have been the flat Invasion (starring Nicole Kidman) and the nasty horror flick Blood Creek. Neither inspires much in the way of optimism for an adaptation that even the most talented writer would struggle to make sense of. According to the report, Warners was impressed with Kajganich’s draft for a feature film version of It and decided that he was fit for crowing King again. What’s more, he’s also the writer of the Pet Sematary remake at Paramount, which means the studio system only knows of one guy who’s interested in writing these things for some reason. The question here is why Affleck would pass off writing duties (although the answer may be that he just doesn’t have the time to deal with a tome of that size). The silver lining, of course, is that Affleck so far has proven himself to be a [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

The easiest thing for Paramount to do would be to take a copy of Mary Lambert’s 1989 adaptation of Pet Sematary, bury it in an old Native American graveyard, and wait for the new version to emerge from the dirty depths. Instead (according to the LA Times), they’ve hired 1408 writer Matthew Greenberg to start on a script for a remake. They’ll probably also find a director and a crew and film it when they’ve got perfectly good, perfectly cheap voodoo magic that could make the movie for them. On second thought, they’ll probably be using voodoo magic, too. Stephen King is a ridiculously prolific writer, but he also has an uncommon amount of his work adapted for screen. It’s unclear why the world needs another Pet Sematary, especially when Lambert and company did it so well, and especially when there are tons of other King properties out there that need some movie love. This move is most likely part of the King re-invigoration seen with the massive Dark Tower project and continued by word that The Stand will also be a feature film. In other words, this might not be the last King adaptation we see go into development. Anyone out there want to make “Strawberry Spring” or “The Man Who Loved Flowers”?

I had hoped Paramount’s rumored plan to remake Pet Sematary (or re-adapt Stephen King’s novel if you prefer) was dead for good. Silly me.

Remember all of those movies you love to sit around watching and loving and talking about? Some of them were directed by women. You didn’t even know that. Did you, you chauvinist pig?

The Creed family has moved to Maine in search of a happy and quiet new life. Unfortunately, they’ll find only anguish, suffering, death, and the supernatural instead.