Director Mike Flanagan offers upbeat updates on his adaptation of THE DARK TOWER

A few months ago that director was announced Mike Flanagan was developing an adaptation of Stephen King’S The Black Towerwhich has been a long-standing dream project of his. There have been efforts in the past to make that happen, and the one time a movie has been made, it didn’t really hit like fans hoped.

Flanagan is the director behind projects like The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, Gerald’s GameAND Doctor Sleep. The Black Tower it’s a project he’s wanted to undertake for years, and he envisions the adaptation of the books as a five-season series that will be followed by two standalone films.

During a recent panel with Flanagan at the Tribeca Film Festival, he offered an upbeat update on the project amid the writer’s strike saying:

“This is what I want to do the most. I have rights. We are on strike. But I’m very optimistic that we’re on the right track with this, we have good partners, we can’t talk about it, but I think it’s going to happen. I can’t say for sure, but we look good. So I hope it’s up there.

When Flanagan first announced the project, he said that the pilot script is “one of my favorite things I’ve ever gotten to work on.” He shared at the time:

“I wrote a pilot, we see it as a series that will last at least five seasons. And having lived with this project for as long as I have, I have a huge amount of it processed in my brain. But I have a pilot script that I’m excited about and a very detailed outline for season 1 and a larger outline for subsequent seasons. I think eventually, if we’re able to make it work, there are other writers I want to get involved in that process that I’ve worked with before; I think they would be really fabulous for a really small, intimate writers room where we can keep breaking it up.

“I’ll tell you, more than half my life, I closed my eyes and was able to watch a lot of this game, I dreamed about it. That first shot that comes straight to the incredible first sentence of the first book, The Gunslinger, I’ve had that image buzzing in my head since I was a student. He’s got to get out of there eventually, I really need to get that out of my head.

“The pilot script is one of my favorite things I’ve ever gotten to work on. It was surreal to work on it. So we were blown away and grateful that Stephen King is entrusting us with such an undertaking, something so precious to him, and we hope to find the right partners to make it happen.”

Flanagan also said he’s looking to include characters from Doctor Sleep In The Black Tower. He explained how that would be possible by saying:

“The beauty of King’s universe is that it’s all connected. And the focal point of these connections is The Dark Tower. In the Dark Tower universe, there are all these other characters from the King world that come into play in different ways. When you make changes to the source material to introduce characters that could have played a very important role in that story… Doctor Sleep was written after The Dark Tower was finished.

He also went on to talk about the potential to add those characters to his Dark Tower project, saying:

“Abra Stone in the Dark Tower universe, like Breaker [telepathic agent], it’s really interesting. There’s a character in The Dark Tower called Dandelo, who I think is a cousin of the True Knot, who is this emotional vampire but who feeds on laughter instead of fear. But there’s room in that world for True Knot themselves, there’s room for Rose The Hat. There may be room for Danny Torrance. There are all kinds of things that could be surprising if we can get that property back on its feet. There are ways to put in other things from King’s universe, and I think the Shining universe – the Doctor Sleep universe – could fit right into that. Especially since, in our film, Dick Hallorann almost points to The Dark Tower in his last scene with Dan.

Flanagan is an incredible director and I’m very excited to see what he does with King’s The Black Tower. If anyone is going to be able to pull off a great and fitting adaptation, it’s Flanagan.