Mike Flanagan is getting his wish. The series-adaptation mastermind behind The Haunting of Hill House, The Midnight Club and others said last month that his “dream project” would be to adapt Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series.
And now he’s doing exactly that. In an interview with Deadline, Flanagan and his producing partner Trevor Macy broke the news that they have the rights to the series and are developing it themselves (outside of their current deal with Amazon). Flanagan said, “If you know anything about me, you know it has been my Holy Grail of a project for most of my life.”
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The Gunslinger
This is not, of course, Flanagan’s first Stephen King rodeo. He’s directed two feature film King adaptations, Doctor Sleep and Gerald’s Game. His connection to King means that Flanagan has talked to the writer about the adaptation; as he told Deadline, “This happened because I sent him a very, very detailed outline of what I wanted to do with it. And it was in response to that, that he gave us the rights.”
He envisions the adaptation as “at least five seasons” that would be followed by two movies. In an IGN interview last month, Flanagan detailed the way the series should start, saying:
“The first scene would be a black screen and the words, ‘The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed’ would come up in silence, and you’d hear the wind, and we’d gradually fade up to this Lawrence of Arabia-esque landscape with a silhouette in the distance just making his way across the hardpan. And we would build it out from there—in order—to the end.”
Now, he tells Deadline he has “a pilot script I’m thrilled with and a very detailed outline for the first season and a broader outline for the subsequent seasons.”
Flanagan’s most recent series, The Midnight Club, was canceled at Netflix after its first season. (Flanagan took to Tumblr to explain his plans for season two.) He has one more Netflix project coming, the Poe adaptation The Fall of the House of Usher, and says in this interview that they “just locked picture on all episodes”—which suggests his slate may be somewhat clear for him to focus on The Dark Tower.
No platform or network is attached to The Dark Tower yet, but surely it’s only a matter of time.
