Rights to adapt Stephen King’s The Dark Tower books into a TV series have been acquired by director Mike Flanagan and producer Trevor Macy, according to an exclusive interview with Deadline. Within the interview (which explored the horror duo’s production company Intrepid Pictures moving from Netflix to Amazon), Flannagan confirmed that King himself granted them the rights after receiving a “very, very detailed outline” of Flanagan’s plans for the project.
Mike Flanagan is creating a TV series for The Dark Tower
Flanagan envisions that the franchise could span five seasons and two standalone feature films.
Flanagan envisions that the franchise could span five seasons and two standalone feature films.
is a news writer focused on creative industries, computing, and internet culture. Jess started her career at TechRadar, covering news and hardware reviews.
The horror duo is best known for creating Shows for Netflix, such as Midnight Mass and The Haunting of Hill House, and have previously worked together to adapt other works from Stephen King, including Doctor Sleep (2019) and Gerald’s Game (2017). The pair acquired the rights for The Dark Tower prior to Intrepid Pictures’ recent deal with Amazon Video, and as such, the show isn’t guaranteed to be exclusive to the Amazon Prime streaming platform.
The show isn’t guaranteed as an Amazon Exclusive, as rights to adapt The Dark Tower were acquired prior to Flanagan’s deal with Amazon Video
“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 to Deadline. “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.”
It’s early days, so details are slim, but Flannagan also confirms within the Deadline Interview that he’s already written a pilot episode, and he views the project as “five seasons of television, followed by two stand-alone features.”
Previous attempts to adapt Kings’ dark fantasy series haven’t been well received. The Dark Tower (2017), starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, was panned by critics and audiences alike, and Amazon’s earlier plans for a seven-season adaptation were canceled in 2020 after a pilot had already been filmed. With any luck, Flanagan and Macy can work some much-needed magic and create an adaptation that fans are actually on board with.
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