Mike Flanagan just confirmed his long-awaited Dark Tower adaptation is very much alive

Time was, if you were adapting Stephen King for the screen, Frank Darabont was your man. Not anymore – in 2026, it’s Mike Flanagan who’s clearly nabbed the author’s seal of approval. Flanagan’s been quietly pulling off what most directors wouldn’t dare touch. He turned King’s ‘one-chain-to-the-bed’ thriller Gerald’s Game into actual cinema, made Doctor Sleep work as both a King novel adaptation and a Kubrick sequel (which absolutely should not have clicked, but did), and even last year’s The Life of Chuck managed to get at King’s sentimental side — an angle most adaptations refuse to touch with a bargepole.

Strangely, it’s telly where Flanagan really comes into his own. If you’ve watched The Haunting of Hill House, Bly Manor, or The Fall of the House of Usher, you already know: he’s turned limited-series horror into a proper event. Midnight Mass was basically Salem’s Lot in everything bar the official branding.

Next up, he’s got Amazon’s new take on Carrie lined up for Prime Video, due out sometime this autumn. But here’s the twist: while he’s working on that, everyone’s been asking, what’s going on with his absolute passion project, The Dark Tower? Flanagan’s been calling it his ‘Holy Grail’, and with good reason — if you know your King, The Dark Tower sits at the centre of the author’s whole universe, with enough genres crossing over to make most studio execs sweat through the suit jacket.

For a while, things actually looked promising on this front. In June, Flanagan was all but doing victory laps, telling Entertainment Weekly:

"I'm very optimistic that we're on a great path with that, we have good partners, we can't talk about it, but I think it's going to happen. I can't say for certain, but we look good. So I'm hoping that's up there."

But now, he sounds a bit more, let’s say, battle-scarred. In a newer chat with EW, he admits:

"Getting the green light on Dark Tower is a much longer and more involved process than anything else I've ever approached in my life."

Can’t say I’m surprised. The Dark Tower isn’t your usual King fare – it’s a massive, genre-hopping beast of a saga that sprawls across seven books. You’ve got Roland Deschain, last of the Gunfighters, slogging across universes towards the titular tower, picking up a ragtag band along the way – a kid, an ex-junkie, a civil rights activist, and a talking raccoon-dog called Oy. It’s King’s masterwork; every studio’s worst spreadsheet nightmare.

Here’s what Flanagan thinks the adaptation needs to actually work:

• Five series on television (yes, five).
• Two feature films, to top it all off.

Makes sense that he’s putting Carrie front and centre for now. As much as Carrie’s a classic, it’s basically a contained story — not seven books’ worth of plotting and dimension-hopping. That’s probably less of a migraine to sell upstairs at Amazon.

The takeaway here: Flanagan’s clearly not giving up. He’s still plugging away at it, even if the greenlight’s moving at roughly the speed of a tortoise in molasses. No word yet on dates, filming, or casting, and judging by Flanagan’s tone, he’s in for the long haul.