Stephen King's 'The Stand' next for 'Harry Potter' director David Yates?

You're David Yates. You just directed the last four "Harry Potter" films, which by the end of this weekend will have grossed a little over $1 billion, with a "B." And that's just in the United States. So, what do you do next?

Pretty much whatever you want, as it turns out. The director will pick from several high-profile projects set up at Warner Bros., ranging from a possible multi-film adaptation of Stephen King's novel "The Stand" to a comic-book project to a biography of Al Capone.

Vulture reports that Yates was due to meet with studio executives Friday (July 15) to discuss several projects, foremost among them an adaptation of "The Stand," King's epic novel about a battle between good and evil that ensues after a plague wipes out most of Earth's population (King previously adapted the book for a 1994 miniseries that aired on ABC). Warner Bros. is hoping to split the novel into three movies.

(Of course, Universal was also talking about making three films, plus a TV series, from another King epic, "The Dark Tower," but its status is shaky at the moment.)

Yates will reportedly decide on "The Stand" in the next couple of weeks, and if he says no, he could move on to a couple of other projects. Yates has been developing a Capone biopic called "Cicero" -- and Vulture says "Inception's" Tom Hardy is attached to star -- which he may want to do first. Also in the mix is "Fables," based on a comic-book series that has fairy-tale characters living in present-day New York. The latter, incidentally, was in development at ABC a couple years ago but never really got off the ground.

All three sound pretty intriguing -- which one sounds like the best fit for Yates?