Josh Boone is kind of a major Stephen King fan, and it’s that fandom and devotion to the author’s works that helped Boone land the directing gig on the long-developing adaptation of The Stand. Although Boone already sold the author on his ambitious pitch for that novel (which may or may not involve a miniseries in addition to one or two films), the director has pushed that project back to tackle another King adaptation first: Revival.

Deadline reports that The Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone has written a screenplay for a big screen adaptation of Revival, the 2012 sci-fi / horror novel by Stephen King. Boone and his Mid-World Productions banner (a name that nods to King’s Dark Tower series) will produce the project with Universal.

Although some of King’s more recent works have been divisive among even the most devout fans, Revival is a solid, simple and effective story. It follows a preacher named Reverend Jacobs who loses his faith when his wife and child are tragically killed. Soon, his hobby of playing around with electrical currents devolves into total obsession, eventually driving him to the brink of madness as he sets out to conduct his most horrific and dangerous experiment yet. Also involved in the story is a man named Jamie, who meets Jacobs at three key points in his life, and who receives aid from the fallen preacher in a moment of dire need.

There’s some clever homage at work in Revival, which borrows a very familiar horror narrative and transforms it into a contemporary story of grief and desperation. Boone has reportedly already lined up actors for the two leading roles in Revival, though their identities have yet to be revealed.

Boone still plans on adapting The Stand, a project that’s been rumored to involve at least two films and perhaps a television series. Warner Bros. let the rights to The Stand lapse, so the project has landed back at CBS Films. Boone reportedly has verbal commitments from several actors for major roles, though nothing official yet.

In addition to directing and scripting these two King projects, Boone is reportedly attached to an adaptation of King’s mystery-fantasy novel Lisey’s Story. He’s also developing Fox’s X-Men: The New Mutants movie and an adaptation of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. Out of all of these projects, Revival will be the quickest for Boone to get into production, and it should give us more of an idea about what to expect from his telling of The Stand.

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