Following the recent announcement that he would be partnering with Amazon Prime Video once his Netflix deal is over, horror maestro Mike Flanagan has just confirmed his next project: a TV adaptation of Stephen King’s epic fantasy saga The Dark Tower.
“Predating our deal with Amazon, we acquired the rights to The Dark Tower, which if you know anything about me, you know it has been my Holy Grail of a project for most of my life,” Flanagan said in a recent interview with Deadline. “We actually have those rights carved out of our Amazon deal, which doesn’t mean that they can’t or won’t get behind it at some point—you don’t know. But that’s something we’ve been developing ourselves and are really passionate about finally getting it up on its feet at some point.”
“This happened because I sent [King] a very, very detailed outline of what I wanted to do with it,” he continued. “And it was in response to that, that he gave us the rights. A project like this, I wouldn’t want to be involved in it at all If we were taking it in a direction that was going to be blasphemous to the Stephen King material, but he’s been very, very supportive and very excited about what we’d like to do with it.”
Flanagan has spoken before about his longstanding desire to adapt The Dark Tower, calling it his “dream project of all dream projects” in a Men’s Health interview earlier this year. Of course, he has a strong track record when it comes to turning books by Stephen King into hits. One of his earliest projects at Netflix was an adaptation of Gerald’s Game, one of a very small number of books in the author’s back catalogue that had been widely deemed unfilmable. Flanagan later followed this with Doctor Sleep, a sequel to King’s novel The Shining which also had the unenviable task of bridging the gap between that book and Stanley Kubrick’s iconic film—all of which he deftly achieved.
He has also proven adept at retelling and remixing the works of other well-known authors such as Shirley Jackson in The Haunting of Hill House, Henry James in The Haunting of Bly Manor, and Christopher Pike in The Midnight Club. His final series at Netflix, The Fall of the House of Usher, will do the same with the oeuvre of Edgar Allen Poe.
Flanagan went on to explain that his vision for The Dark Tower includes five seasons of a TV show, followed by two movies to complete the sprawling, complicated story. This isn’t the first time a director has imagined weaving the story across mediums: in 2010, Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman originally intended to release a trilogy of films, with seasons of TV airing between each installment to help fill in the story. Those plans eventually folded, and a single film was released in 2017 starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey.
Stream The Dark Tower (2017) Here
Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey in The Dark Tower (2017).
What is The Dark Tower about?
Spanning eight books and several short stories, and written over the course of two decades, The Dark Tower is considered by many Stephen King fans to be the author’s magnum opus. The story follows a gunslinger named Roland Deschain and his companions on a quest across multiple worlds to the titular tower—which is said to exist at the center of all known universes—while also frequently battling a villain known as the Man in Black.
The main series consists of The Gunslinger, The Drawing of the Three, The Waste Lands, Wizard & Glass, Wolves of the Calla, Song of Susannah, and the climactic finale The Dark Tower, in addition to a later novel, The Wind Through the Keyhole.
In addition to being a reimagining of traditional Arthurian fantasy with touches of King’s trademark horror, the series is also heavily influenced by Westerns, and King has stated that Clint Eastwood was an inspiration for his main character. The series also draws on King’s wider body of work, with characters from novels such as ‘Salem’s Lot and The Stand making appearances (it’s unclear whether the screen rights to The Dark Tower also extend to characters originated in other works).
The Dark Tower original cover artwork.
Who might star in The Dark Tower?
No cast has been announced yet, but Flanagan is known for working with the same actors across multiple projects, most notably his wife Kate Siegel, Henry Thomas, and Rahul Kohli. Kohli certainly has the gravitas to play gunslinger Roland (he already has Western cred after playing a sheriff in Midnight Mass), and The Haunting star Oliver Jackson-Cohen could certainly bring some of his dark intensity to the Man in Black—or alternatively reprise the role of a recovering heroin addict as Eddie.
Other main roles in the novels include Susannah, a Black civil rights activist who is transported from the US in the 1960s to Mid-World to aid Roland in his journey, and Jake, a young kid who becomes a surrogate son to our heroes. We know that Flanagan has a knack for casting talented child actors in his shows, so at least we don’t need to worry there.
Philip Ellis is a freelance writer and journalist from the United Kingdom covering pop culture, relationships and LGBTQ+ issues. His work has appeared in GQ, Teen Vogue, Man Repeller and MTV.
