Mike Flanagan wants a Jaws sequel — and a horror Jurassic Park sequel

If you follow modern horror, you can't really avoid Mike Flanagan these days. He's gone from indie darling to the bloke Hollywood drags in whenever it needs someone to nurse a big, knackered franchise back to life. And not without reason: Flanagan's Doctor Sleep actually managed to pull off the near-impossible, serving as both a loving homage to Kubrick's The Shining and a proper Stephen King adaptation. Not many can say they've kept both the King diehards and Kubrick snobs reasonably happy.

Lately, Flanagan's becoming Hollywood's unofficial Mr Fix-It for haunted IPs. He's running the show for Carrie on Prime Video, he's steering the new Exorcist sequel — the one subtitled Martyrs — and he even managed to tempt James Gunn with his script for a Clayface horror film over at DC. The man's obviously got studios queuing up for his horror touch.

Is Nothing Sacred: Flanagan and the Franchise Game

Normally, news of yet another classic getting a sequel (or worse, another 're-imagining') makes me want to pull the curtains and pretend cinema stopped in 1984. But I'll give Flanagan this — he's got a track record for actually caring about the source material. So, when he decided to do an AMA on Reddit and someone lobbed him the 'which franchise would you do next then?' question, his answer raised a few eyebrows — and not always in a bad way.

Flanagan admitted he's become the very thing he once swore he wouldn't: a sequels and franchise guy. But he came clean about what he'd really love to get his hands on. Here's Flanagan's own words from his Reddit AMA:

"Honestly, I wish to hell I could make a JAWS movie. Another example where no one will EVER get close to the original, but there is a ton of room for improvement on the sequels. A JURASSIC movie could be a blast too, I'd want to go really scary with it. A true dinosaur horror film would be a blast."

He's not wrong about the state of Jaws sequels. If someone's going to try again, might as well be someone aware they'll never match Spielberg — and who's actually saying so, up front. And the idea of a properly scary Jurassic Park flick, with actual horror instead of dinosaurs mugging for the camera, does sound like a better plan than whatever Jurassic World: Infinite Franchise is doing.

Exorcist Sequel: More Than a Paycheque

If anyone's worried about him turning out lazy franchise fodder, there's evidence Flanagan's genuinely invested — sometimes obsessively so. Back when Bloody Disgusting asked him if his new Exorcist: Martyrs film might just kick off another run of sequels, Flanagan insisted he wasn't thinking that far ahead. He basically said the only thing on his mind while making it was to not let down the fans, or the whole legacy attached to the Exorcist name. Here's how Flanagan put it in that interview:

"Oh, you know, I have no idea. I was so fixated on getting to the end credits of that movie. That's another franchise that has this huge legacy and so many expectations piled on it. I wouldn't let myself imagine past, like, the last day of production, to be honest. It was, how do I deliver an Exorcist movie right now? One movie that is going to invigorate the fan base and show us something we haven't seen before in one of the most explored subgenres that exists? So, yeah, if that turns into something more, that would be amazing. I'm still just trying to see my way to the end of the edit. I can't see past that at the moment. But yeah, I guess, never say never."

So, while it's fashionable to hate on endless remakes, Flanagan's playing a different game — one where the director's a fan, and not just collecting a paycheque. For the handful of us still clinging to hope that big franchises can get a proper new chapter, having someone like Flanagan at the wheel is probably the best bet we've got right now.