Henry Thomas Hopes to Reunite With Mike Flanagan in The Dark Tower

Though best known to many film fans for his role in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Henry Thomas has made a name for himself in recent years for working as a genre character actor. One of the key collaborations in his career has been working with writer/director Mike Flanagan including movies like Ouija: Origin of Evil, TV shows The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, and The Fall of the House of Usher, and Stephen King adaptations including Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep. Even beyond working with Flanagan, though, Thomas has appeared in even more King adaptations including Stephen King’s Desperation and the Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King TV series. Thomas recently starred in the King-inspired Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, which is available now to own or rent on Digital and hits 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on December 19th.

Speaking with ComicBook.com for his role in Bloodlines (now streaming on Paramount+), we asked Henry Thomas if there were any other Stephen King adaptations that he would be interested in and one seemed to immediately come to mind. He revealed, “Well, supposedly Mike’s gonna be doing . So, I’d love to have a part in that but, who knows how that will turn out. But, that’s a potential one and other than that …Over the years I’ve kind of learned to just wait and see what happens. And I take the things that I can get at and projects come to me sometimes and, otherwise, you’re just at the mercy of the fates.”

The first attempt at adapting Stephen King’s magnum opus wasn’t a tremendous success, with the Idris Elba-starring The Dark Tower movie being met with poor reviews and earning just $50 million at the domestic box office. Flanagan gaining the rights to the series is one prospect that has many fans excited about its potential, especially since the director has already adapted two of the more difficult King texts into hit movies with Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep.

King’s Dark Tower books are not only one of the most dense reads in his entire bibliography, but ones that tie all of his books together in one way or another. The 2017 movie adaptation only hinted at this with barely visible Easter eggs. If Mike Flanagan has his way though, his new swing at bat for The Dark Tower could pull from all corners of the King Universe. In theory, at least. Speaking on the Script Apart podcast previously, Flanagan opened up about his love for the characters in Doctor Sleep that he got to spend time with as a creative and how they could maybe be brought into The Dark Tower.  

“The thing about the King universe is, it’s all connected. And the nexus point of those connections is The Dark Tower,” Flanagan teased. “So I have the rights to that at the moment, I hope I’m able to keep them long enough to get it made, but that’s something else that always affords opportunities. In the Dark Tower universe, there are all these other characters from the King world that come into play in different ways. And that’s one where, when you make changes to the source material to introduce characters who could have played a very important role in that story the way it was structured … Doctor Sleep was written after The Dark Tower was finished. Abra Stone in the Dark Tower universe, as a Breaker [telepathic agent], is really interesting.”

He continued, “There’s a character in The Dark Tower named Dandelo, who I think is a cousin of the True Knot, who’s this emotional vampire but who feeds on laughter instead of fear. But there’s room in that world for the True Knot themselves, there’s room for Rose the Hat. There might be room for Danny Torrance. There’s all sorts of stuff that could be amazing, if we’re able to get that property on its feet. There’s ways to pull in other things from the King universe, and I think The Shining universe – the Doctor Sleep universe – could very seamlessly dovetail into it. Especially since, in our movie, Dick Hallorann all but points to The Dark Tower in his last scene with Dan.” 

When it was confirmed that Flanagan had managed to snag the rights to Stephen King’s The Dark Tower it wasn’t confirmed where the series might land. Flanagan previously had a deal set up at Netflix and has now moved his talents over to Amazon’s Prime Video. Despite having an overall deal at the streamer, Flanagan confirmed that he could set up The Dark Tower anywhere as it was separate from his Prime contract. There’s currently no guarantee that it will even get made at this point, but should he return to his collaborators at Warner Bros. it might make getting some of these characters in there a little easier.   

Pet Sematary: Bloodlines is available now to own or rent on Digital and hits 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on December 19th.