Why Mike Flanagan's Adaptation Of Stephen King's The Dark Tower Is Taking So Long

Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" saga — which comprises eight novels, a novella, and a children's book — can be considered his magnum opus. The sheer breadth of its story, along with its breathtaking mishmash of genres, helped create an epic that embodies unfiltered storytelling. Magic is an integral aspect of "The Dark Tower," as exemplified by the existence of the Man in Black, along with demons, mutants, and the titular Tower itself. In many ways, "The Dark Tower" resists adaptation. For starters, the depth of this engrossing, fantastical story cannot be encapsulated in a single installment, and the best aspects of the saga demand an interiority that is best experienced in the written format.

Nevertheless, attempts to adapt "The Dark Tower" for the screen have been made, with 2017's "Dark Tower" movie emerging as a failed adaptation that sidesteps the wonderful strangeness of the original books for some reason. It is a baffling creative project — if it can even be called that — that completely mishandles the potential of its source material, weaving an incoherent tale that doesn't resemble King's saga in any shape or form. There are, admittedly, some justifiable underpinnings to the messy nature of the plot; indeed, with its free-form, surreal structure, and convoluted mythology, "The Dark Tower" simply feels like it shouldn't be adaptable. Be that as it may, the 2017 film adaptation seems to fundamentally misunderstand the essence of King's books to begin with.

Enter Mike Flanagan, who has a promising track record of adapting King's works so far thanks to his ability to grasp what makes characters tick and re-create fictional worlds with inspired leeway. His prior movie adaptations of King's works ("Gerald's Game" and "Doctor Sleep") have balance faithfulness to the source material with artistic liberty, allowing Flanagan to reimagine aspects of King's stories to better suit his directorial sensibilities. The results have been great so far, which bodes well for his "Dark Tower" TV series. With that said, why is his TV show taking so longer to come together in the first place?

Flanagan provided a brief update about his "Dark Tower" adaptation during a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter in September 2024. According to the filmmaker, he feels that King's story may demand both a full-length feature and an "ongoing series" treatment:

"That thing's launching an oil tanker. But we're working on it. It was stalled first by me moving from Netflix to Amazon and stalled again by the strikes. It's progressing, and we're further along than we've ever been on it. I do see feature components to some of the other stories, but the main storyline is [an] ongoing series."

It seems that part of the reasons behind the delay are purely circumstantial, compounded by the fact that this is the kind of story that cannot be rushed, especially if you care about capturing the essence of the source material. Moreover, Flanagan has a lot on his plate at the moment, seeing as he's also attached to direct a new "Exorcist" film and is helping to adapt King's classic horror story "Carrie" into a series. As such, we'll have to wait and let him marinate on "The Dark Tower" for as long as he needs to.

Back in Summer 2024, Prime Video executive Vernon Sanders also told The Wrap that "The Dark Tower" is at a stage where things are still being figured out, with Flanagan at the center of these discussions. As Sanders explained:

"So Mike is incredibly passionate about this and we're incredibly passionate about Intrepid [Pictures]. There are a few things in the hopper with Intrepid with us and we're trying to figure out right now how to prioritize. So I don't have anything to share specifically on 'Dark Tower' other than we are in weekly conversations with him about this and a few other pieces that we're leaning into."

So, yep, our best bet is to wait until Flanagan locks onto what he feels is the best direction for this adaptation, which will require a lot of love and attention to bloom into the unforgettable saga that it is on the page. In the meantime, you can look forward to Flanagan's "The Life of Chuck," which is based on King's novella of the same name.