Culture
Mike Flanagan Is Desperate To Adapt The Dark Tower Which Already Exists As A Film Nobody Survived
By Bruno Von Falken, . BSN Network. Satire.
Mike Flanagan, the man responsible for more hours of Netflix horror content than any single mattress should have to absorb, announced this week that he is "desperate" to adapt Stephen King's The Dark Tower, a project he described with the specific longing of a man who has never once been told no.
The Dark Tower, for those who have not yet had the pleasure, is an eight-book epic spanning gunfighters, interdimensional travel, a giant lobster with teeth, and a tower at the centre of existence that everyone agrees is very important. In 2017, Sony distilled this into a 95-minute film starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, which was received the way you receive a voicemail from an unknown number: with dread, briefly, and then you forget about it entirely.
Flanagan is aware the 2017 film exists. He has not mentioned why he is aware and still proceeding.
"I've been a Dark Tower obsessive since I was a teenager," Flanagan said in a recent interview, deploying the word "obsessive" in a way that his publicist has presumably approved. "It's the thing I am most desperate to do next."
Flanagan currently has, by one count, four projects either in production, in post-production, or in what the industry calls "announced," which is a category that functions exactly like a restaurant reservation you made for a group of twelve and have every intention of honouring.
Stephen King, whose work has been adapted so many times that several of his books have SAG cards at this point, has reportedly been in contact with Flanagan about the project. King's enthusiasm for new adaptations of his work is a matter of public record and also of ongoing concern to anyone who sat through the second half of the 2019 It sequel.
The announcement arrived alongside several other projects Flanagan described as priorities, including a Carrie reimagining, which means there are now more Carrie adaptations in development than there are people who have read the book past the prom scene.
Sources close to the production, meaning people who follow Flanagan on social media and read between the posts, suggest the Dark Tower adaptation would be a series rather than a film, because the lesson everyone took from the 2017 film was that the problem was runtime.
Netflix declined to confirm a greenlight, a budget, a timeline, or the existence of any formal conversation, which in streaming terms means it is either definitely happening or Flanagan mentioned it at dinner once.
Idris Elba has not commented. Matthew McConaughey has not commented. The tower at the centre of all existence is said to be standing by.
The story we are making fun of: https://pagesix.com/2026/10/05/entertainment/carrie-creator-mike-flanagan-reveals-the-horror-projects-hes-desperate-to-tackle-next/