‘The Dark Tower’: Mike Flanagan & Trevor Macy Working On New Adaptation For Prime Video

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Another year, another adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Tower’ is in the works, this time by Mike Flanagan & Trevor Macy, the people behind Netflix’s ‘Haunting Of…’ and ‘The Midnight Club’ series.

For those of you unfamiliar with the King novel series, it is something of a mash-up between fantasy, sci-fi, the wild west, and Arthurian legend. The story follows Roland Deschain, the last living member of a knightly order known as gunslingers and the last of the line of “Arthur Eld”.

Mike Flanagan & Trevor Macy are no strangers to King’s material, having previously adapted ‘Doctor Sleep’ and ‘Gerald’s Game’ for the big screen. However, ‘The Dark Tower’ has been tricky to bring to screen in the past, with a 2017 movie version starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey failing to set the box office alight, and Amazon’s previous pilot, written by Glen Mazzara, failing to move forward. Flanagan and Macy are hoping to have better luck.

In an interview with Deadline, Flanagan commented that he has written the pilot and plotted out the run, envisioning it as five seasons, followed by two stand-alone features. He also revealed that he talked to and sent a very detailed outline to Stephen King, which is what persuaded the author to give Flanagan and Macy the rights.

“I wouldn’t want to be involved in it at all If we were taking it in a direction that was going to be blasphemous to the Stephen King material, but he’s been very, very supportive and very excited about what we’d like to do with it,” Flanagan added.

The pair are also acutely aware of the previous issues adaptations of ‘The Dark Tower’ have had, but believe they are up to the challenge given their previous work on King’s material.

“I think we’ve had good and incremental practice to get there because people said Gerald’s Game was unfilmable; that was daunting,” said Flanagan. “When Doctor Sleep came around, people were saying, “Oh my god, of all the projects to take on, why would you step into the crosshairs there?” So I feel like we’ve been gently preparing ourselves for this along the way, but yes, none of it is lost on me.”

“If you don’t feel intimidated, you are not doing it right,” adds Macy.

It is early days for this potential adaptation of ‘The Dark Tower’, so may not move forward, but we’ll let you know if and when we hear more.