Dark Tower Showrunner Gives Hopeful Update on TV Adaption (& Teases Massive Scale)

It’s been nearly three years since Mike Flanagan announced a new adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, but he has been working on it continuously since then. Flanagan is a busy man, with a new Exorcist movie and the DCU’s Clayface both coming out next year and a series adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie in the works as well. Flanagan just sat down with ComicBook to discuss his new movie The Life of Chuck, which hits theaters nationwide on June 13th. Despite his long to-do list, he assured us that The Dark Tower is still in the works, and if it feels like it’s going slowly, that’s because of the show’s massive scale.

“It’s not that I’ve put it down. It’s just that the thing is so big, it’s like building an oil tanker,” Flanagan explained. “We’ve been moving it forward this whole time. It’s just, that’s how big it is. It’s constantly in the works, and you better believe as often as you guys may want to ask about it, Stephen King is asking me about it more, and I’m not gonna let him down.”

The Dark Tower is one of King’s most ambitious works — a series of epic fantasy novels blending a wide array of genres and establishing a shared universe for many of King’s works all in one place. There are eight novels in the Dark Tower series itself, but they incorporate characters, settings, and concepts from King’s other works, making the experience more enriching for those who read King’s entire catalog. The main story is about Roland Deschain, a man from an alternate reality that combines elements of medieval fantasy worldbuilding with American Old West aesthetics. Roland is a “gunslinger,” which is similar to being a knight in his world.

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The Dark Tower was adapted into a film released in 2017, which was poorly received. Amazon bought the rights to the series in 2018, and in 2022, Flanagan signed a first-look deal with Amazon. At the time, Flanagan and his long-time producing partner Trevor Macy acquired the rights to The Dark Tower for their production company, Intrepid Pictures. Flanagan is still working with Intrepid and Macy, although he now has his own production company, Red Room Pictures, founded last year. It’s unclear how the rights to The Dark Tower are distributed there.

For now, Flanagan is focused on another King adaptation — The Life of Chuck. Adapted from a short story published in 2020, it was written and directed by Flanagan, with an A-list centering around Tom Hiddleston. The movie hits select theaters on June 6th, and will be released nationwide on June 13th.