Stephen King adaptations have been released in a steady stream for half a century now, and it says a lot about the author’s continued popularity that they are still coming our way. In fact, they’re more common now than they ever were. We’re still finding ourselves on the receiving end of first-time adaptations such as The Long Walk and The Institute, but we’re also on the verge of receiving some remakes of King movies on the small screen. For instance, Mike Flanagan’s Carrie and The Dark Tower. The former is intended to be a miniseries and the latter is intended to run for multiple years.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Flanagan has proved himself to be one of the ultimate helmers of King adaptations, but both of these projects face hurdles. Very different hurdles, but hurdles, nonetheless.
What Mountains Must The Dark Tower and Carrie Climb?
As King’s first published book, it’s only natural that Carrie was the first to be adapted. And, under the guiding hand of Brian De Palma, the result was a masterpiece. To this day it is one of the very best movies based on one of the author’s works. A lot of this is due to the casting of Piper Laurie and Sissy Spacek, but even outside of them it’s a film that understands the tone of the source material and goes to great lengths to convey it on screen.
In fact, De Palma’s Carrie is so fantastic that it has made any further attempts at adapting the novel seem destined to fail. Or at least fall short. And they have, thus far. This was applicable of the 2002 made-for-TV movie (a backdoor pilot for a series) and the 2013 theatrical version with Chloë Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore. Neither felt like it had anything of note to contribute, so they felt far inferior to both the book and the ’76 movie.
And that’s not all when it comes to Carrie. Those three adaptations aren’t even all there have been for this particular story. It’s also been told in a 1988 musical adaptation, an off-Broadway revival in 2012, and in a 2018 episode of Riverdale. There are few people out there who are even slightly unfamiliar with the material. It’s not unlike how we as the audience kept being told Spider-man and Batman’s origin stories.
But this is Mike Flanagan we’re talking about. He understands that Carrie is perhaps played out just as well as he knows how to bring King’s voice to the big screen. He recently made clear that his adaptation will be fully updated to fit into the real world, where teenagers experience online on social media platforms and have to walk through metal detectors as they enter their school because of rampant, undealt with gun violence in the United States.
One other thing Flanagan knows is that, when it comes to adapting The Dark Tower, a 95-minute movie isn’t going to cut it. It won’t even come close. Fortunately, as his Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, and The Fall of the House of Usher proved, he’s marvelous at telling long-form stories.
The good news is that not enough people saw the 2017 movie for its poor quality to really be a death sentence for the series. Even still, The Dark Tower saga’s is the most elaborate world King has ever crafted. It is a land he kept visiting intermittently for 22 years, 30 if you count the “interquel” The Wind Through the Keyhole.
This isn’t even the first time that creatives have tried to turn The Dark Tower into a series. Amazon attempted to back in 2018 before it was abandoned in 2020. But the fact remains that if anyone can take King’s slow-burn narrative riddled with layers of mythology and turn it into a smoothly running four-quadrant hit it is Flanagan. And, according to him, the scripts for the episodes thus far have been pleasing. He’s earned our confidence, so we’ll look towards his The Dark Tower with an air of confidence.
Which of these two King adaptations are you the most excited for? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
Most Viewed
-
Image courtesy of Tor Books/Macmillan -
Image Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
