Stephen King Shares Support of Mike Flanagan Adapting The Dark Tower

Filmmaker Mike Flanagan has been attempting to develop an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower for quite some time, with his recent partnership with Amazon Studios seemingly allowing such a project to earn substantial momentum, which is a prospect that King himself hopes becomes a reality. The ongoing writers’ strike means that we shouldn’t expect any sort of movement on the project anytime soon, but given that King himself supports the idea, this will surely excite audiences that whatever Flanagan aims to pursue with the project, the creator of the material is excited to see what he does with it.

When a fan on Twitter said they wanted to see Flanagan develop the saga into a movie or multiple seasons of a TV series, King himself echoed the sentiment, sharing, “Thewriterhappenstoagree.”

King’s The Dark Tower saga is arguably one of the favorite works among fans of the writer, as it blends together fantasy, horror, sci-fi, and Western themes into a sprawling adventure, that also features connections to other corners of King’s library. 

Back in 2017, a feature film was developed that was meant to be an adaptation of the work, and despite starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, the film was both a critical and financial disappointment. Given the depth of the mythology of the book series, the film was meant to serve both as an adaptation of the source material, as well as being a sequel to those stories, while also being meant to kick off a long-running series that would include films and TV series.

Amazon Studios first aimed to develop a TV series based on the project in 2018, and despite casting some figures in pivotal roles, that version of the concept was abandoned in 2020.

Just earlier this year, Flanagan confirmed that he had the rights to develop a project, expressing how he hoped to use the upcoming series to tie together various corners of the King universe.

“The thing about the King universe is, it’s all connected. And the nexus point of those connections is The Dark Tower,” Flanagan revealed to the Script Apart podcast. “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.” 

Stay tuned for details on the future of The Dark Tower.

Would you like to see Flanagan adapt the story? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!