he could do, as the novel takes place in several locations; and the story's relevance to social issues. Due to the epic style of the novel demanding a huge budget, King and Romero's primary concern was possibly having to deal with financing from major studios, which would likely have meant losing a lot of artistic control or worsening studio reputation if the film was a box office bomb. King recalled in a 1980 interview of Hollywood middlemen being skeptical of Romero's idea of The Stand becoming a feature-length picture for the content's huge scale. There were some studios that did offer King and Romero several option contracts for adapting The Stand shortly after the novel's release, but the two turned all of them down. At the same time, Laurel Entertainment's Richard P. Rubinstein was also obsessed with trying to produce a film of The Stand since the book had been published in 1978, and it became Laurel's pet project throughout the adaptation's development as a theatrical production. In a summer 1979 talk between Romero and Rubinstein, they came up with an idea of how to fund it independently: by producing Creepshow, a low-budget original film that would create a huge profit and increase Laurel's credibility. Both Creepshow and The Stand were first announced in a summer 1980 edition of Cinefantastique, and King completed the first draft in early 1981. Warner Bros. initially wanted King to do a single, two-hour script, but he ended up turning in a screenplay that was over 400 pages (equivalent to six hours in length). Creepshow was released in 1982 to commercial success, and The Stand project garnered the interest of Warner Bros., a company that placed it into development. The budget for The Stand was set around $15–25 million just after Creepshow's release. As of September 1982, King had completed two drafts of The Stand. The second draft planned for it to be a two-film series with each movie being two hours. However, Laurel, by the completion of King's third draft in December 1983, switched the plan to one three-hour film. Dario Argento stated in a 1983 interview that he was once approached to direct a film version of The Stand but rejected the offer due to a lack of interest in working on adaptations. King completed the final draft circa 1986. Despite Romero's initial excitement, he grew increasingly distant from the project due to