In the world of current Stephen King adaptations, one project reigns supreme: Mike Flanagan's proposed adaptation of King's The Dark Tower series. Back in December, we learned that Flanagan and Trevor Macy of Intrepid Pictures are developing the project as a TV series, one that'd include five seasons' worth of television and two accompanying feature films.
That's a massive project! Big enough that - given the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, the number of projects we've recently seen scuttled by large streaming networks, and the lack of updates regarding The Dark Tower since that initial announcement - you'd be forgiven for wondering whether it was still being worked on.
Wonder no more! Today, on a new episode of FANGORIA's The Kingcast, Flanagan provided the following Dark Tower status update:
"I feel really good about where we are. Oddly, where we are at the moment is completely frozen, because of the strike, but we had a wonderful spring with it and we're making enormous progress on it. And I have every reason to believe that on the other side of the strike, it's gonna be priority #1.
We have great partners on it that I can't talk about, and we've got some really exciting actors circling on it that I can't talk about, and we have some potentially groundbreaking approaches to the filmmaking of it that I just can't really talk about ... but what I can say is that my fears that any momentum we had developed was gonna be obliterated [by the strike], well, I don't really worry about that.
We're in a healthy place. We are of course in solidarity with the WGA and SAG, and once those immediate needs are taken care of and everyone's back to work, I think that's when we're gonna immediately deploy. But it's going very well."
All of this should be music to the ears of any Dark Tower fan. Stephen King's sprawling tale (a seven-book series that runs the gamut between horror, science fiction, metaphysical westerns, and everything in between) is, debatably, the author's crowning achievement, a complex and dizzyingly meta epic that's practically screaming to be given a faithful adaptation ... and if anyone's gonna approach this material with the respect and attention to detail it deserves, it's gonna be Mike Flanagan. Fingers crossed!
Be sure to listen to the latest episode of The Kingcast to hear more from Flanagan on his other currently-gestating Stephen King adaptation (a feature film based on King's recent novella "The Life of Chuck"), his thoughts on King's Dolores Claiborne, and more. You should also stay tuned for further updates on The Dark Tower, which we're hoping will come along sooner rather than later.
