When it comes to Stephen King adaptations, it can be said without a single ounce of hesitation that Mike Flanagan has permanently earned the benefit of the doubt. The man clearly has an overflowing passion for and understanding of the work, and he executes his love in the form of movies that are equally faithful and captivating – his track record including Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep, and The Life Of Chuck. The man has given his fellow Constant Readers every reason to trust him when it comes to King on screen… and yet, I can totally understand any and all consternation that may be felt about the recent news that he is now attached to a remake of The Mist, and I’m choosing to address those feelings in this week’s edition of The King Beat.
The last few days have been extremely exciting for King fans, as Monday brought the news that the author’s next novel, Other Worlds Than These (the sequel to The Talisman and Black House), will be arriving in stores everywhere this coming October. Before digging into that news, however, there are some thoughts about Mike Flanagan’s The Mist that I think are worth considering in the earliest days of the project’s development. There’s a whole lot to discuss, so let’s dig in!
The Argument For And Against Mike Flanagan Making A New Adaptation Of The Mist
Stephen King is one of the most adapted authors of all time, with Shakespeare probably being his only real competition in terms of quantity, but there are nonetheless a great number of books by the author that have not yet been source material for film or television. Fans of the author are still waiting for novels like Rose Madder, Insomnia, and The Girl Who Loves Tom Gordon to have their spotlight moment on screen.
So why does Mike Flanagan want to remake The Mist, particularly after already going down the remake path for the Carrie miniseries that will be released later this year?
I’ve been mentally chewing on that question for the last couple of days, and while the filmmaker has not yet publicly commented on the newly announced project (either to officially confirm his involvement or explain his interest), I can recognize both the pluses and the minuses in the venture. In terms of the latter, the challenges are readily apparent: Frank Darabont’s 2007 film an extremely faithful adaptation of the King novella on which it’s based, meaning that significant changes concocted by Flanagan would almost entirely be deviations from the source material; and because the ending of the Darabont movie is so brutal and memorable, a level of expectation is going to be set that is going to be near-impossible to satisfy.
Those are some significant road blocks sitting in front of the project in its earliest days of development, but let’s consider a couple of other points…
The Mist’s Story About People Turning Into Monsters In A Crisis Remains As Relevant As Ever
The Mist is a horror story with an encompassing interdimensional fog and a wide variety of eldritch creations designed to haunt the imagination, but one doesn’t need an advanced degree in media literacy to understand that what’s really scary about the tale isn’t really the otherworldly monsters; it’s the people. The novella is a textbook example of one of Stephen King’s great talents as a storyteller – chronicling what happens when complex, realistic human characters encounter extreme circumstances – and in this case, a small community experiences total breakdown.
It’s a timeless and universal story because it digs at core elements of human nature – but reflecting on its core themes and looking at where things are in society today helps one understand why Flanagan’s remake interest is piqued. Full of discord, prejudice, fear, and confusion, the emotions that flood the small Maine supermarket besieged by extradimensional entities are the same ones that we are seeing dominate much of life in the mid-2020s, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to see the Doctor Sleep filmmaker’s reflection on that connection.
The Effects In The Frank Darabont Movie, Constrained By The Limited Budget, Have Not Aged Particularly Well
Frank Darabont’s The Mist holds a special place in pop culture history thanks to its aforementioned bleaker-than-bleak ending, but those who know the backstory behind the making of the movie know that the writer/director’s commitment to that ending came part and parcel with consequences: his insistence on the extreme tragedy that plays out in the final minutes meant that he had to settle for a restrictive $17 million budget.
The filmmaker accomplished great things with the money he was given to make The Mist, but you can also see the constraints on screen – particularly where the monsters are concerned. Visual effects have advanced leaps and bounds in the last 19 years, but the CGI doesn’t even look great by 2007 standards. The black-and-white cut is a bit more forgiving because it lends the work the enhanced feeling of a 1950s B-movie, but it’s not a cure.
Mike Flanagan’s The Mist can be an improvement in that arena. The filmmaker hasn’t gotten many opportunities in his career to play around with monster mayhem, and I can see that being a particular draw for him in the making of the project. I won’t get my hopes up that he will be able to have a full-on creature workshop on set that produces all varieties of creatures with practical effects, but I will hold out hope that the VFX work in a new adaptation will look a lot better than what we saw back in the ‘00s.
At present, there are more questions than answers regarding what we can expect from Mike Flanagan’s latest Stephen King project, and it’s never particularly easy to get excited for a remake of a film that doesn’t really need a remake, but there is nonetheless still enough potential here to earn genuine anticipation.
Stephen King’s Other Worlds Than These Is Coming In October, And Fans Can Now Read The Opening Of The Book
There are very few things that are truly consistent in this ever-changing world of ours, but one thing that we can count on is the release of a new Stephen King book every year. The works don’t always come out the same day or even in the same season, but the prolific author has released at least one new tome every year going back to the publication of The Shining in 1977. There was never a question of “if” were were going to get a 2026 title but rather “when” – and we finally got the skinny on what’s happening with the latest novel from King this week.
Titled Other Worlds Than These, the new novel is now set to arrive in stores on October 6, 2026, and it has been promised as the conclusion of the trilogy that also includes 1984’s The Talisman and 2001’s Black House. It’s the first in the series not co-written by Peter Straub, who passed away in 2022, but the author is receiving a posthumous credit, as King developed the novel from an idea the two men discussed prior to Straub’s death.
Officially merging the fantastical world of The Territories from the previous books in the series with the expanse of Mid-World from The Dark Tower, the work will feature the final adventure of protagonist Jack Sawyer, whom we have followed on a cross-country trip to save his mother and joined on the hunt for a serial killer. The story will be a very different kind of adventure, as the magical protagonist can no longer will himself across realities without serious consequences: specifically, he can’t return to his normal life in America without old wounds opening up and killing him. The official plot description from Scribner can be found below:
Jack must stop a rampaging gang of infected teenagers from America-side, and the forces of the mysterious Gullet at the edge of Mid-World, before it destroys our world and all worlds. Jack is older now; his Ka-tet (echoing the world of Roland) is fraying; and his task, nearly impossible.
That’s probably a pretty confusing paragraph if you’re familiar with neither the previous Talisman books nor The Dark Tower, but you now have eight months to familiarize yourself with the canon in preparation. The official release from the publisher announcing the release date for Other Worlds Than These says it can be read as a stand-alone novel, but I have little doubt that much more will be gleaned from the literary experience with the connected books.
For those Constant Readers who are well-aware of what’s going on with Jack, you can get a special preview of the new book via Esquire, which has published what probably amounts to the first couple pages of the novel. The paragraphs do a rather wonderful job both recapping what has happened to the character in the past and teasing the dark place in which he has now found himself.
Should you want to ensure that you’ll be able to get a copy of Other Worlds Than These on the day it’s released, pre-orders are open now for both hardcover and eReader editions.
That brings us to the end of this edition of The King Beat, and while the last few days have been filled with huge news related to the author, the truth is that every week offers at least some kind of new, interesting, and or/exciting development in the world of King – which is why I’m back here on CinemaBlend every Thursday with a brand new column.
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