Matthew McConaughey will sport some mighty fine cowboy boots if rumors turn out to be true. According to The Guardian the actor has been approached by Warner Bros. to play the villain in the Stephen King movie adaptation of The Stand. We’re talking about the charismatic Randall Flagg here, the adversary our heroes will have to face. Josh Boone, the director of the movie, said on Kevin Smith’s Hollywood Babble-On podcast that the cast is going to “blow people’s minds” so this might actually be true. McConaughey is one of the most talented and adored actors in Hollywood at the moment and we all know that he’s got what it takes to bring this character to life.Boone has also announced on the same podcast that there will be 4 films instead of one.A smart move considering that King’s book is 1200 pages long.
The story behind Stephen King’s The Stand features a virus called “Captain Trips” which wipes out nearly everyone and thus marking society’s end. Only a few immune people manage to survive. Randall Flagg enters the scene as a charismatic and enigmatic figure with a secret agenda, one that is not to everybody’s liking. Stephen King’s character had supernatural abilities and is one of the authors main antagonists in his books, mainly in The Dark Tower series.
Originally, Randall Flagg was portrayed in the 1994 TV miniseries adaptation by actor Jamey Sheridan. We don’t know how the villain will look in these new movies but in the first TV adaptation, King had a say in deciding who would portray his bad guy. He wanted someone who “would make the ladies’ hearts go pitty pat, that looked like the type of guy you would see on the cover of one of those sweet, savage love paperback romances.” McConaughey sure fits the bill.The actor recently starred in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar which opened big at the box office and is a huge hit through and through. He also won an Oscar at the beginning of 2014 for his performance in Dallas Buyers Club. McConaughey also proved his skills in HBO’s cop drama True Detective as Rust Cohle, a haunted detective whose unorthodox methods get the better of him. The first Stand movie does not have a premiere date but that will change very soon.