Planned King Stephen movie version to be directed by Ben Affleck gets new writer . . .

David Kajganich will work on the screenplay for the planned movie version of the 1978 Stephen King novel The Stand about a supervirus that wipes out most of humanity and the ensuing supernatural battle between the forces of good and evil.

Kajganich has two writing credits to his CV: the ill-fated 2007 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers that starred Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig simply titled The Invasion and Blood Creek, the little-seen 2008 low-budget Nazi occult horror flick directed by Joel Schumacher (!).

Ben Affleck was supposed to both write and direct the movie version of The Stand, but Kajganich got the job after his script for a remake of It, also a Stephen King novel adaptation, caught the film-makers’ attention.

The huge 1 472 page novel has previously been made into a 1994 TV mini-series and Harry Potter screenwriter and director Steve Kloves and David Yates have left the project in October 2011because they felt the project will work better as a miniseries.

The project then passed on to actor-turned-director Ben Affleck.

The Stand is in development and a 2013 release date is likely . . . if it ever gets made.