When Mike Flanagan provided Stephen King fans with an update about his adaptation of The Dark Tower earlier this year, he preached the virtue of patience. During a podcast interview, he expressed nothing but excitement about the project, but he added that he is willing to wait for the industry to tell him when the time is right for him to make it. Now, less than half a year later, he's saying that it may end up being his top priority once the on-going WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes come to an end, and his optimism is so powerful that it's actually managing to give me anxiety.
Mike Flanagan is the guest on this week's episode of The Kingcast, and while most of the conversation is about the Stephen King novel Dolores Claiborne and its adaptation from director Taylor Hackford, the filmmaker also provided an update about his vision for The Dark Tower. Nothing is presently happening with it because of the aforementioned labor stoppages, but there was evidently enough progress made with it in the spring that he expects it to be a key focus when the strikes are resolved. Said Flanagan,
I feel really good about where we are. Oddly, where we are at the moment is completely frozen because of the strike. But we had a wonderful spring with it, and we’re making enormous progress on the project, and I have every reason to believe that on the other side of the strike, it’s gonna be priority one.
It was in December 2022 that Mike Flanagan first announced he had acquired the rights to Stephen King's Dark Tower books – and he envisions a direct translation of the beloved series, unlike the 2017 film that was unrecognizable to King's Constant Readers. Blending western, science-fiction, fantasy, and horror genres, the story centers on an aging gunslinger named Roland Deschain who lives in a desolate universe called Mid-World and is ever questing to The Dark Tower, a monolith that stands at the center of all realities.
It has not been explicitly said what medium we can expect to see The Dark Tower in – either films or television or a mix of both – but it would seem that details are being ironed out and things are progressing. Mike Flanagan didn't offer any specifics or name any names, but he mentioned that there are "partners" involved and that conversations are being had with actors. He added,
We have great partners on it that I can’t talk about, and we have some really exciting actors circling it that I can’t talk about, and we have some really, potentially groundbreaking approaches to the filmmaking of it that I just can’t really talk about, so there’s a bunch of stuff that very frustratingly for all of your listeners, I can’t talk about.
It's true that the lack of specifics is frustrating, but that "potentially groundbreaking approaches to the filmmaking" part is really where my anxiety kicks in – and it purely has to do with being burned before. Fans will remember that there was a time when NBC Universal had its own "groundbreaking" approach to making The Dark Tower involving a mix of movie and TV shows. Those ambitious plans were brimming with potential... but then the whole enterprise fell into development hell and the end result of the whole thing was the aforementioned 2017 disaster.
What certainly helps to quell trauma-induced concern is the intense dedication of Mike Flanagan, who has said repeatedly that he views The Dark Tower as his personal dream project. The filmmaker had some worries of his own about the project in recent months, as he feared that the strikes would end his project's forward progress, but he evidently has his reasons not to stress about that:
What I can say is that my fears that any momentum we had developed was gonna be obliterated; I don’t really worry about that. I think we’re in a healthy place and we’re of course in solidarity with WGA and SAG[-AFTRA]. Once those more immediate needs are taken care of and everyone’s back to work, I think that’s where I’m going to immediately deploy.
As noted by Mike Flanagan, we won't hear any substantial updates about The Dark Tower adaptation until the labor dispute is worked out between the writers, the actors and the studios – but it sounds like exciting times are ahead. In the meantime, you can learn about all of the King-related projects that are in the works with our Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV guide, check out our picks for the best Stephen King films of all time (two Flanagan titles are on the list), and learn about the full history of King adaptations with my Adapting Stephen King column.
