It looks like Captain Trips has taken another victim as yet another director has dropped out of The Stand adaptation. Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart) came on-board the movie after both David Yates (Harry Potter) and Ben Affleck left the project.
Cooper had just replaced Affleck in August when Ben took the role of Batman in the upcoming Batman vs. Superman movie. The news of Cooper leaving is sudden as he had just talked over the past few days about his plans for The Stand, calling it a “daunting challenge” as well as a harrowing and “searingly realistic.” Cooper even mentioned that Stephen King was very gracious with him and was a fan of Crazy Heart.
So, what happened?
Scott Cooper wanted The Stand adaptation to be Rated-R and Warner Bros. wanted it to be Rated PG-13. This is disturbing. The original The Stand mini-series was pretty good, but was missing a lot of the spirit of the books because they had to edit down the violence for television. While a PG-13 movie will allow a lot more violence than TV allowed, The Stand is – at heart – an R-rated story.
There are also concerns by Warner Bros. about whether this can be done in one movie or will take multiple ones, possibly a trilogy. It looks like Warner Bros. needs to sit down and figure out what they want The Stand adaptation to be before they find another director.
SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER