Mike Flanagan’s upcoming Carrie series was always going to need more story. Namely because Stephen King’s debut novel is short, the prom has already been burned into pop culture by Brian De Palma’s 1976 movie, and Prime Video ordered eight episodes rather than another two-hour page-to-screen adaptation. Flanagan has earned plenty of trust with King material, but the first details about how he plans to expand Carrie White’s world have given me pause. Honestly, it just sounds too much like X-Men.
In Entertainment Weekly’s first look at Carrie, Flanagan explained that the series will explore the science behind telekinesis and connect its title character to other women with similar abilities. If you've read all of Stephen Kings books like I have, you know the material has roots in his novel, but the showrunner’s description sounds much closer to the foundation of a new superhero movie mythology than the intimate horror story I associate with Carrie. Flanagan explained:
