‘The Dark Tower’: Mike Flanagan Calls His Series Reboot An “Oil Tanker,” Doesn’t Want 2017 Movie Being “The Final Word”

One of the more ambitious series of books from the world of prolific genre author Stephen King has to be “The Dark Tower,” and it was previously adapted to a feature film in 2017 from Danish director Nikolaj Arcel that starred Idris Elba as iconic good guy The Gunslinger and Matthew McConaughey as the evil Walter Padick. The movie was a box office and critical disappointment, curbing a would-be film franchise, and now Mike Flanagan (“Life of Chuck”) is actively developing a series reboot after acquiring the rights, which he is calling a “priority.”

Flanagan shared a bit of an update with Empire Magazine (via Deadline) about “The Dark Tower,” calling the epic show an “oil tanker” while adding that, “It’s moving. We’ve got a lot of scripts done for it. It’s the first priority.” Also, that with the 2017 movie, “We can’t let that be the final word. We really can’t.”

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When the series project was announced as being in development back in 2022, Flaganan said he had envisioned his “The Dark Tower” series as running for five seasons, followed by two standalone feature films.

Interestingly enough, that 2017 movie attempted to connect the interdimensional angle by even teasing that the entity that became Pennywise from “IT” has connections to the world of “Dark Tower” (there are plenty of King stories that interact with each other). We have to imagine that the idea with this new series could be exploring those various connective tissues to other King characters and truly giving fans the version of “Dark Tower” they can be proud of.

Most recently, in the HBO Max prequel series “IT: Welcome To Derry,” the show creatives were able to connect those newish events in the 1960s to “The Shining” by exploring Dick Hallorann’s background and canonical connection to Derry before moving on to the haunted hotel in the beloved Stanley Kubrick film (Flanagan helming the sequel “Doctor Sleep“). Randall Flagg, aka Walter Padick, the main antagonist of “The Dark Tower,” could be a huge crossover character, as he was also the baddie of “The Stand,” and given his supernatural abilities, may have evil influences across the King universe.

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Other things on deck for super busy Flanagan, a modern guru of horror, include an upcoming series reboot of “Carrie,” he wrote the R-rated body horror DC Studios film “Clayface,” and has recently enlisted Scarlett Johansson (“Jurassic World Rebirth”) to star in his new “Exorcist” film for Blumhouse/Universal. Hopefully, he’ll have time, eventually, to take a breather and get some much-needed vacation time.