Mike Flanagan has been booked and busy lately with all his horror adaptations, from Clayface in theaters this weekend to his Carrie series just getting renewed for Season 2. However, if you’re a Stephen King fan, there’s one adaptation you’re probably most hyped for: his in-the-works The Dark Tower series. Although I just found out that The Dark Tower is not the most daunting project on his plate right now.
Flanagan’s talents have been highlighted through his work on book-to-screen adaptations, which he’s done for the likes of The Haunting of Hill House, The Midnight Club and Edgar Allan Poe works in The Fall of the House of Usher. When he was asked about the hardest one he’s put to page, though, he said it’s one he is currently working on. In his words:
I feel like I'm climbing my adaptation Everest right now. Been working on Warhammer.
Flanagan revealed his “adaptation Everest” to be Amazon’s Warhammer series while on The Process Unlocked. We’ve known since the summer of this year that the Carrie showrunner is teaming up with Henry Cavill on the live-action series. I didn't think he'd say this, but now that he has, I totally get it.
The interviewer also thought Mike Flanagan would answer her question with The Dark Tower, since it’s a series that’s proved to be difficult to adapt over the years. (Remember that failed movie adaptation with Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey?) Here’s where Flanagan said he’s at with his next Stephen King series:
That one I feel like I figured out… Well, it's really, you do the books. Like, the thing is, the book, Stephen King is genius in how he structures The Dark Tower, because he starts this giant, world-building, potentially overwhelming story with one of the most perfect lines of any book. 'The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.' It is two characters. There's a clear objective. One is running away, one is pursuing, and it's a desert. There is nothing else to look at.
I guess Flanagan has had more time to think about The Dark Tower, considering he acquired the rights back in 2022. If you don’t know much about that one, it’s an eight-novel series that follows “the last gunslinger” Roland as he journeys across a seemingly endless desert to reach something called The Dark Tower. He hopes reaching it will save the collapsing world he lives in.
While Mike Flanagan has gained some confidence around his The Dark Tower series, taking on Warhammer has proved to be an even bigger challenge. As he added:
Warhammer is not like that. You know it's 700 novels? The Dark Tower, when I picked it up was seven novels, it became eight. Warhammer is 700 novels.
Warhammer is a very popular tabletop miniature wargame and sci-fi universe that, as he said, expands across hundreds of books. It’s not the kind of series where there’s a specific book one to start with. There are tons of entry points one can take if they want to get into it. There lies the problem for Flanagan. Where and how does he start the storytelling when there’s tons and tons of options?
Mike Flanagan has been surprising us with his adaptations for almost a decade, and between his role in upcoming Stephen King movies and TV and Warhammer, we expect he’s not done yet. I can't wait to see what he does on the highly advanced level he seems to have found himself at when it comes to adaptations.
