Celebrated genre filmmaker Mike Flanagan appeared as part of a Tribeca Festival masterclass discussion this week, where writer Justina Ireland conducted a chat with the “Doctor Sleep” director and “Midnight Mass” creator.
Ireland recently worked with Flanagan as part of the writer’s room for the Netflix series “The Fall of the House of Usher”. Flanagan directs four episodes of the eight-episode limited series, which adapts Edgar Allen Poe’s 1839 short story as the framework for a series that will take inspiration from multiple Poe stories.
A year ago, that series was famously disrupted midway through production when it was reported that the show’s leading man Frank Langella would be recast following an investigation into alleged misconduct on set. Bruce Greenwood was hired to take over the role, which included reshoots of already filmed scenes.
Ireland asked Flanagan about the difficulty of being a creative who also has to be leader on set during difficult times. Flanagan responded:
“The management of production is something there is no real training for. Being the adult in the room is a bummer, but I learned early on if I wanted a career, I had to balance creativity to people, responsibility to the story and the people you are working with. You swim or drown together… The production of ‘Usher’ was rough, but not the roughest I’ve had.”
Flanagan clarifies that the roughest production he ever faced was his first series, Netflix’s “The Haunting of Hill House”. Flanagan’s dream project has been a series adaptation of the Stephen King novel series “The Dark Tower,” which he first announced in December. He confirmed it’s progressing:
“That’s the one I want to do the most. I have the rights. We’re on strike. But I’m very optimistic that we’re on a great path with that, we have good partners, we can’t talk about it, but I think it’s going to happen. I can’t say for certain, but we look good. So I’m hoping that’s up there.”
Flanagan’s next film effort is “The Life of Chuck,” starring Tom Hiddleston and Mark Hamill. It marks his third film adaptation of a King story following “Gerald’s Game” and “Doctor Sleep”.
Source: Variety
