Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Tower’ Series in the Works From ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ Team
Mike Flanagan and Trevor Macy are getting right to work following the announcement of their deal with Amazon Studios as the Intrepid Pictures duo prepares to tackle Stephen King‘s The Dark Tower.
According to Deadline, the creatives will take on their most ambitious project to date by adapting the King property, which Flanagan reportedly envisions as a five-season TV series and two stand-alone feature films that would follow. Flanagan became a household name with his Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, and most recently the too-soon canceled The Midnight Club.
This isn’t the first time Flanagan and Macy have taken on King’s works as the pair previously collaborated on the films Doctor Sleep and Gerald’s Game, both adaptations of the famous author’s books. Over the years, various adaptations of The Dark Tower have been attempted, ultimately resulting in the 2017 film starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, as well as a pilot for Amazon/MRC written by Glen Mazzara which ultimately didn’t move forward.
Flanagan and Macy shared the news of their acquisition of The Dark Tower with Deadline, in a lengthy Q&A which reveals Flanagan has written a pilot script and season outlines for the supposed dream project. The Dark Tower is a book series that draws from various genres ranging from dark fantasy and science fantasy to horror and Western.
“Predating our deal with Amazon, we acquired the rights to The Dark Tower, which if you know anything about me, you know it has been my Holy Grail of a project for most of my life,” Flanagan said in the interview. “We actually have those rights carved out of our Amazon deal, which doesn’t mean that they can’t or won’t get behind it at some point — you don’t know. But that’s something we’ve been developing ourselves and are really passionate about finally getting it up on its feet at some point.”
Flanagan went on to detail how he managed to snag the rights, as he shared, “This happened because I sent [Stephen King] a very, very detailed outline of what I wanted to do with it. And it was in response to that, that he gave us the rights.”
As Flanagan stated, The Dark Tower isn’t guaranteed to launch on Prime Video because the rights were acquired by Intrepid Pictures directly. Considering Flanagan and Macy signed an exclusive multiyear deal, it’s likely they will be able to pursue The Dark Tower at their new streaming home if given the green light.
Stay tuned for more details on the show as it continues to take shape.