Flanagan has a season of The Dark Tower written and Stephen King's blessing — and still no studio willing to pay for it
Mike Flanagan has encouraging updates on two projects — one’s still alive, and the other he’s currently writing.
Mike Flanagan has quietly become Hollywood’s chief Stephen King interpreter, if not outright caretaker. If you’ve lost track of all the various King projects on his plate, you’re not the only one—so let’s break it down. We’ve got a new Carrie TV series about to launch on Prime Video, more word on that famously lumbering The Dark Tower adaptation, plus Flanagan is officially hammering away at a fresh take on The Mist. Here’s where everything stands—straight from Flanagan’s recent interviews, and yes, it’s all rather busy over at Casa Flanagan.
Carrie premieres on Prime Video on 7 October as an eight-part series—Flanagan's first time taking King to television, with Summer H. Howell as Carrie White and Samantha Sloyan as her fearsome mum.
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Dark Tower: The Dream That Refuses to Die
First, The Dark Tower. We all know this one’s been rolling round development hell for a suspiciously long time, but Flanagan insists the project is 'very much on the table.' That’s the phrase he used when asked by Entertainment Weekly, though he didn’t pretend there aren’t major headaches holding things up. Turns out the main hurdle is the sheer sprawl of King’s universe and the labyrinth of rights connected to it—various characters and shards of plot are dotted across books owned by different people or studios. This isn’t a garden-variety book adaptation; it’s a web of corporate red tape with a story somewhere in the centre.
Flanagan describes the development process as 'epic' (his word) and says it’s been moving at ‘oil-tanker pace’. Apparently, he’s always tinkering with it, but the ball is very much in the court of whichever studio is willing to stump up for a project of this size. It’s still not at the production stage; at last check the first season’s scripts were written and Stephen King himself was happy, but they haven’t started shooting. It bears repeating: Amazon once shot a pilot for their own Dark Tower, only to kill it off, so clearly no one wants to botch it again.
- The Dark Tower is Flanagan’s long-term pet project, aiming to capture the full weirdness and genre-mashing of King’s multi-novel saga.
- Fans will spot links to other King tales (plus, weirdly, Marvel and Harry Potter references), making rights clearance a recurring nightmare.
- Previous attempts—including an Amazon pilot by Glen Mazzara—never made it to series. Flanagan’s approach is fresh, but faces a mountain of legal and logistical obstacles.
It’s not impossible that characters or elements from the Carrie series could end up feeding into Flanagan’s Dark Tower vision at some point. When asked, Flanagan said it’s always on his mind how these worlds could connect, noting that King’s wider universe is full of links between different stories. But don’t go expecting Carrie to suddenly morph into a Tower prequel; for now, those ideas remain just that—ideas.
The Mist: Page One Is Already Different
If you want something more imminent, Flanagan told Collider he is now actively writing the script for The Mist, based on King’s 1980 novella. He reckons the screenplay should be finished around Halloween. So, writing is underway—no word yet on where or when production might begin, or when we’ll actually see it.
Anyone bracing themselves for a carbon-copy of Frank Darabont’s 2007 movie can breathe easy (or anxious, depending on your view)—Flanagan has promised right from the jump that his version is not a retread. In a social media post, he said Darabont’s film was brilliant (he’s not wrong) but insisted there’s a reason to revisit the story that goes beyond just remaking what already worked.
As Flanagan put it on his social channels:
This isn’t a retread. The differences start page 1.
It tracks with how he’s handled previous literary classics. Hill House, Bly Manor, House of Usher—they all kept some bones of their sources but went off in fresh directions. With The Mist, it’s safe to expect something distinct from both King’s original story and Darabont’s famously bleak ending, though what that actually means is still under wraps.
Some context for the non-King obsessives: The original Mist has regular townsfolk trapped in a supermarket as all hell breaks loose outside, courtesy of a creepy fog full of monsters. The horror is the creatures—but also the ugly group dynamics inside. Flanagan is clearly interested in his own take on those psychological cracks.
King Content Overload?
Flanagan’s Carrie series is the next to arrive, and it’s a proper update: modern setting, social media angle, broader focus outside the classroom and prom night. He’s directing multiple episodes himself — so if you like one, you can probably blame (or thank) the man personally.
After that, there’s this queue of looming projects: The Mist, The Dark Tower, some sort of Exorcist sequel, and the madcap Warhammer 40,000 series starring Henry Cavill. Basically, Stephen King fans will have a lot to keep an eye on, but patience is probably required if you’re hoping to see Roland Deschain’s epic gunslinger journey or a new spin on foggy horror any time before the next general election.