Following a jump from Netflix to Amazon, acclaimed “The Haunting of Hill House” and “Midnight Mass” duo Mike Flanagan and Trevor Macy revealed their Intrepid Pictures label’s ambitious plans for a screen adaptation of Stephen King’s iconic fantasy novel series “The Dark Tower”.
Flanagan certainly has experience adapting King’s works with his acclaimed film adaptations of “Doctor Sleep” for Warners and “Gerald’s Game” for Netflix.
Late last year, Flanagan revealed that the project is being envisioned as a five season series followed by two stand-alone features – all of it a mishmash of dark fantasy, science fantasy, horror and western genres just like the eight-book saga.
To date, the only screen adaptation was 2017’s McConaughey-Elba led film which is mostly seen as a high-profile failure that bears little relation to the source material. Glen Mazzara was also hired to create a TV version in 2017, but that project fizzled out early.
Recently appearing on the Script Apart podcast, Flanagan talked about that film’s wrong approach and how its failure “salted the earth” for future adaptations like his upcoming take:
“[My Dark Tower adaptation] couldn’t be more different [from the movie]. That was the wrong approach to the material, kind of across the board, and it was such the wrong approach that I think it kind of salted the earth for anyone else who wanted to plant something under the Dark Tower banner for who knows how long.
But that’s what we’re running into trying to get the show going, is the movie did an enormous amount of damage to the potential [of] getting another iteration up. And they were able to overcome it for an Amazon [Studios] series that took another, different approach again — that is very different than the one I am proposing — and that didn’t get off the ground.
So that has also directly impacted — and I’m at Amazon! That’s my studio now for television, and I can understand going to them and saying ‘Hey, would you like to walk exactly down the same title that you spent all this money on, that you still feel bruised from.’ I understand the issues.”
Considered King’s magnum opus, the books chronicle the journey of a hero named Roland Deschain as he makes his way toward The Dark Tower: a monolith that stands at the center of the universe.
