Mike Flanagan assures The Dark Tower series could still happen and it could even tie into his adaptation of Carrie.
We’re inching closer to Mike Flanagan’s take on Stephen King’s Carrie appearing on Prime Video. On 7th October, we’ll be experiencing the cruel prank played on the young, telekinetic girl at prom from Flanagan’s point of view, but the director assures fans that he’s still working on his The Dark Tower series.
Flanagan acquired the rights to adapt King’s novel series into a TV show back in 2022 and we’ve heard very little about it since, prompting many to think this is the one King project that Flanagan can’t crack.
Thankfully, the writer-director assured EW that the project is still “very much on the table”.
Carrie, which stars Summer H. Howell as the titular character, was King’s first novel, published in 1974 and very successfully adapted into a film by Brian De Palma in 1976. Flanagan’s take will span across eight episodes, stretching a relatively short novel into a much bigger story.
Flanagan also commented that had King written Carrie later in his career, Carrie would have The Shining, the mysterious power Danny Torrance from The Shining and Doctor Sleep also had, the latter another novel Flanagan adapted for the big screen.
Referring to the events of Doctor Sleep, Flanagan commented that if the two worlds were connected, Carrie would be pursued by The Institute and True Knot, the group of vampires who feed off on the steam released by kids with The Shining when tortured, would be aware of her, too.
If the worlds in King’s novels are connected, could Carrie somehow lead to The Dark Tower, if there were to be multiple seasons?
“It’s certainly not impossible. There are characters in the Tower canon who would serve a very specific purpose in that story, who audiences wouldn’t necessarily recognize because they only exist in certain books,” Flanagan said after admitting it’s a question he’s pondered before and refers to King’s 1994 novel Insomnia as something that could help connect things.
We’re probably still quite far away from such things. The 2017 The Dark Tower film, starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, proved just how difficult the novel series is to adapt into a film and a TV show will probably be just as difficult and require a lot of time to get right. Flanagan also still has to complete The Exorcist: Martyrs which is in cinemas next year.
Our fingers will remain crossed that we’ll see a TV adaptation of The Dark Tower in the future. In the meantime, Carrie will hit Prime Video on 7th October.
