Love it or hate it, Interstellar is one of the biggest films of 2014, and it’s the first time Matthew McConaughey jumped into science fiction since 1997’s Contact. The Oscar-winning actor can be forgiven for allowing 15 years to go by before getting involved with another genre movie, but he’s reportedly getting involved with another massively ambitious project, as he’s set to star in the mega-adaptation of Stephen King’s magnum opus The Stand. I’d squeal in happiness, but there’s no telling when this movie is going to actually get made.

Now, there are a lot of characters in The Stand that McConaughey can play and viewers will be happy, but according to The Guardian, he’ll take on the role of big bad Randall Flagg, one of the most iconic villains in all of literature. Following the Captain Tripps plague that destroys the world’s population, Flagg (or The Dark Man, if you will) comes across as less a man and more of a timeless personification of evil as he establishes his Las Vegas headquarters and tries to sway the world’s survivors over to his side. It’s unclear just how deep into Flagg’s history and animal shape shifting the big screen adaptation will get to, but we’re pretty sure they’re going to cover a lot of it, considering how many movies it’ll be.

Just when we were starting to think that things surrounding the adaptation of Stephen King’s epic post-apocalyptic joint The Stand were settling down a bit, this happens. No, the director hasn’t jumped ship again, as has already happened twice, but we might be getting a little more than we initially expected, like four movies worth of The Stand.

After Ben Affleck bailed on the project, The Fault in our Stars director Josh Boone stepped into the role and appears incredibly psyched to be there. The book is a massive, sprawling tome, but the scope was also scaled back some, and the project was envisioned as a single, three-hour, R-rated movie. Back in October, King indicated that might expand again into multiple installments, which makes sense, as The Stand is a huge intersecting network of characters and stories and to try to trim it down is a Herculean task indeed.

Lately we’ve been hearing quite a bit about the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand, and none of it has to do with the most recent director leaving, which has to feel good for them, because the only reports we heard for a long time were that someone else had bailed. In recent days it seems like current director Josh Boone (The Fault In Our Stars) is settling nicely into the production, turning in another new draft of the script, and generally being stoked to get this particular job. But as things progress it’s looking more like the project will come out drastically different than what we’ve been told.

The most recent reports have all said that Warner Bros. plans to do The Stand as a single, three-hour-long, R-rated movie. King’s novel is a massive, sprawling post-apocalyptic narrative that features multiple settings, dozens of characters, and even three hours of screen time seems like there’s going to, necessarily, need to be some substantial trimming. The one movie thing, however, may be a thing of the past.

We’ve heard some concerning news lately regarding the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s massive post-apocalyptic tome The Stand, specifically about a potential epic Lord of the Rings style battle that could take place at the end, supplanting the conclusion from the book. That was, however, an older draft of the script. King himself has apparently had a chance to read the most recent version, and loves it.

After serving as a revolving door for directors like Ben Affleck and Scott Cooper, The Stand finally settled on Josh Boone, who recently helmed the weepy teen romance The Fault in Our Stars (which, despite the title, has nothing to do with science fiction in the slightest). He was also tasked with delivering a new draft of the script, no easy task considering massive size and scope of the 1978 novel, which includes dozens of characters, numerous settings, and ton of other elements, all of which need to fit into a single movie.

Stephen King’s The Stand is a massive brick of a book. Seriously, if someone were to break into you home, you could realistically club them unconscious with the hardcover version without much trouble. That expansive scope and scale has been one of the major problems bringing it to the silver screen (that and they can’t find anyone to direct the sucker). However, after a start and stop production process over the last few years, an adaptation does appear to be on the way, though the film may not end the way fans of the novel expect, or like.

And a warning, this article could SPOIL the end of the The Stand, so if you want avoid that occurrence, you might want to consider sitting this one out.

With an Academy Award under his belt for last year’s Dallas Buyers Club, as well as tons of critical acclaim for HBO’s True Detective, and Christopher Nolan’s space adventure Interstellar on the way, Matthew McConaughey is going through an epic career renaissance (and we didn’t even bring up Magic Mike or Wolf of Wall Street). At this point he can do just about whatever the hell he wants, and he’s also at the top of every casting agency’s wish list, and one of those lists is for the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand.

Deadline reports that Warner Bros. has a covetous eye on McConaughey, targeting him for the villainous character of Randal Flagg in their long-gestating adaptation of King’s massive post-apocalyptic tome. Played by Jamie Sheridan in the made-for-TV miniseries in the mid-1990s, Flagg is an evil figure who may or may not be a demonic presence. After a plague sweeps across the planet, decimating the human race, he and his followers wreak havoc in the aftermath. King has also used Flagg in works outside of The Stand. He became the primary antagonist in The Dark Tower, and has appeared in a series of Marvel comics based on King’s work.