Mike Flanagan Might Include Characters From Doctor Sleep In His Dark Tower Adaptation

With heartfelt horror master Mike Flanagan in charge, fans might finally get the adaptation of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" novels that they've been wanting for decades now. In December, news broke that Flanagan now has the rights to the books – and King's blessing — along with plans to make a TV show version of the long-running literary property. While the project still seems to be on the distant horizon, Flanagan has since revealed to the Script Apart podcast (via Empire) that he's considering weaving in characters from another King book: "Doctor Sleep."

Flanagan directed an adaptation of King's sequel to "The Shining" in 2019, introducing viewers to a psychic cult called the True Knot and its leader, Rose The Hat (Rebecca Ferguson), along with a traumatized, grown-up Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor). As King superfan Flanagan pointed out on Script Apart, there's plenty of precedent for overlap between "The Dark Tower" stories and other King properties. "The thing about the King universe is, it's all connected," Flanagan explained. "And the nexus point of those connections is 'The Dark Tower.'" He cited "Doctor Sleep" as an example of a story that might "seamlessly dovetail" into the upcoming adaptation.

Mike Flanagan noted that other Kingverse characters canonically appear in "The Dark Tower," including some with connections to the True Knot. "There's a character in The Dark Tower named Dandelo, who I think is a cousin of the True Knot, who's this emotional vampire but who feeds on laughter instead of fear," Flanagan pointed out. "But there's room in that world for the True Knot themselves, there's room for Rose The Hat. There might be room for Danny Torrance." The "Gerald's Game" director also mentioned Abra Stone, the shine-possessing girl played by Kyliegh Curran, as a character who would be "really interesting" as a Breaker: one of a group of psychics who appears in "The Dark Tower."

Lest fellow Stephen King aficionados worry that Flanagan is going off book here, he's right that "The Dark Tower" has connections to many, many other works by the horror maestro. Essentially a multiverse-spanning series, King himself has cited connections between the main villain of "The Dark Tower" and "The Stand" and his other most infamous villain, Pennywise. As Flanagan observed, "'Doctor Sleep' was written after 'The Dark Tower' was finished," which may well be the only reason the two don't have more crossovers.

As is, though, Stephen King clearly had some overlap in mind when writing "Doctor Sleep." The book pulls a line directly from "The Dark Tower," when Danny Torrance says, "There are other worlds than these." As Mike Flanagan pointed out, his adaptation made the connection explicit, with Dick Halloran's ghost (Carl Lumbly) invoking a metaphysical concept from the other series when he says, "Ka is a wheel."

Hopefully, Flanagan's spin on the King multiverse will last longer than the previous attempt to fuse together several King-inspired stories: Hulu's great but short-lived series "Castle Rock." It doesn't even exist yet, but it's also safe to say the series will be better than 2017's unimaginative "The Dark Tower" movie, which Flanagan admitted "kind of salted the Earth for anyone else who wanted to plant something under the 'Dark Tower' banner for who knows how long."

Hollywood may not be chomping at the bit for another version of "The Dark Tower," but King fans certainly are, and Flanagan seems to be the perfect man for the job. "There's all kinds of stuff that could be amazing, if we're able to get that property on its feet," he told Script Apart. We can't wait to see it.