Filmmaker Mike Flanagan has outlined his approach to the long-anticipated television adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower, and it hinges on a principle that sounds obvious but has eluded previous attempts: follow the books, and follow them in order.
Flanagan, known for Netflix horror series The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor, has spent years trying to bring King's sprawling fantasy saga to the screen. The script for the first season already carries King's approval, yet the project remains, in Flanagan's words, one of the most complicated properties to get started. He told Entertainment Weekly over the summer that securing a green light for The Dark Tower has been a far longer and more involved process than anything else he has approached in his career.
The adaptation itself, by contrast, is the part Flanagan says he has solved. In a recent interview with The Process Unlocked, he described his method plainly: «You do the books.» That approach differs sharply from the 2017 feature film starring Idris Elba as gunslinger Roland Deschain and Matthew McConaughey as his nemesis, Walter Padick. The movie was panned by critics and disappointed many readers of the series. Flanagan has said of that film, «We can't let that be the final word. We really can't.»
His stated plan calls for five seasons of television followed by two standalone movies, a structure he summarized as simply doing the books in order. Flanagan credits King's construction of the opening for making that possible. The series begins with two figures in an empty landscape: «The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed.» There is a clear objective, one character pursuing and one fleeing, and nothing else to distract the audience. From that foundation, King adds his universe one piece at a time.
Flanagan argues that earlier adaptations stumbled by entering the story midway or at a different point. In his view, an audience cannot be thrown face first into such an overwhelming world. King walked readers in gradually, starting with two people and no detail, and the adaptation should do the same. Flanagan acknowledged that small changes are needed to fit the television format, but he characterized his overall approach as remarkably faithful, estimating that roughly 70 percent of his job is already done by King. The hard part, he said, is not the storytelling but figuring out how to get in.
Whether Flanagan will get the chance to realize that vision remains uncertain. The Dark Tower is not part of his major Amazon deal, though he has suggested Prime Video could eventually get behind it. His next project is an Amazon television adaptation of Warhammer 40,000, which he has said is much harder to adapt than The Dark Tower. If Flanagan's Dark Tower does come to pass, it will be many years from now.
For King's readers, the stakes are familiar. The Dark Tower series is among the author's most beloved works, and its long journey to the screen has been marked by false starts and a feature film that satisfied neither critics nor fans. Flanagan's reputation for careful, character-driven horror has made him a favorite among genre audiences, and his insistence on beginning where King began offers a contrast to the compression and reordering that defined the 2017 movie. The question now is not how he would tell the story, but whether he will ever be allowed to start.