Faith Roswell is a Senior Writer on Screen Rant’s Classic TV team. Since earning her degree in Creative Writing over a decade ago, Faith has written articles on film and TV from a variety of different angles. Faith now combines her knowledge of psychology with her love of monster movies to give more insight into what makes the best ones.
You may have read her Screen Rant lists and features covering horror, sci-fi, and fantasy, or read her Amazon Top 10 book, “Movie Monsters of the Deep.”
Faith has had an extensive career as a writer, appearing on BBC live radio, researching true crime for Rotten Mango podcast, and writing for publications including Mental Floss, Atlas Obscura, and The Daily Jaws before beginning here at Screen Rant.
Mike Flanagan‘s chain of horror successes has cemented his status as one of the best filmmakers of the past few decades, with his ability to adapt Stephen King’s work changing the game for both. Stephen King and Mike Flanagan’s collaborations have been some of the greatest recent movies and TV shows in the horror genre, with the success of the Carrie TV adaptation laying the groundwork for much more ambitious projects. One of these is set to be a career first for Flanagan, not only due to its immense scale, but because of its genre change.
Stephen King’s works have often been difficult to adapt, but this is where Mike Flanagan has shone, with a talent for screening the “unadaptable.” With the filmmaker owning the rights to The Dark Tower, he has made no secret of the fact that he wants to make a TV version of the novel series after the movie adaptation failed disastrously, famously telling Empire Magazine that “we can’t let that [movie] be the final word. We really can’t.” Still, the novel series is a complex mix of genres that is almost certain to give the horror filmmaker a creative challenge.
The Dark Tower’s Fantasy Elements Will Challenge Flanagan More Than Its Scale
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While Carrie is connected to Stephen King’s wider mythology, with its confirmed second season set to explore his universe in greater detail, most of Mike Flanagan’s best TV shows and movies have been on a relatively small scale. This has led many to wonder if The Dark Tower‘s epic scale will be too ambitious. Forming the center of the entire Stephen King universe, the story spans seven main novels and a novella, and takes place within a multiverse in which time is not always linear, allowing for some meta twists.
Flanagan appears to be growing in confidence, with his upcoming Warhammer 40,000 series being a drastic departure from shows like The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass, which are self-contained masterpieces but do not touch the level of complexity and lore that The Dark Tower will need. Still, another factor is likely to challenge him more than the novel series’ scale, and that is its genre. The Dark Tower crosses Stephen King with Tolkien and a classic Western, with characters like The Gunslinger embarking on epic quests in mysterious lands full of strange creatures.
The Dark Tower lore crosses over into Stephen King’s other works, with characters appearing in The Stand, Salem’s Lot, and several other books.
Flanagan’s shows are generally atmospheric and aesthetic, but they have a much more grounded tone than The Dark Tower, as King’s fantasy writing can verge on the absurd. Despite delivering perfect TV shows involving demons and hauntings, The Dark Tower‘s wizards, talking animals and increasingly bizarre characters are an entirely different theme for Flanagan to tackle. Still, after delivering the news that Stephen King fans were waiting for, explaining that the books will be adapted in order, this removes one main challenge with adapting The Dark Tower, but whether Flanagan can convey its fantasy tone remains to be seen.
The Dark Tower Movie Failed To Capture Its Genre-Blend, But Mike Flanagan Could
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Of all the terrible book to movie adaptations, The Dark Tower is one of the most infamous. Despite its beloved source material and the presence of both Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, The Dark Tower has just a 16% positive score on Rotten Tomatoes, with both critics and audiences agreeing that it went wrong in virtually every way possible. Rather than starting on a small scale and expanding the story, the movie attempted to fit the entire novel series into just 95 minutes, resulting in a shallow and confusing disaster.
King’s book series begins with the words “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed,” instantly establishing a classic Western tone, while other genres like fantasy and horror emerge as the story continues. The movie failed to capture this genre blend, instead turning the epic tale into a PG-13 action movie with a revenge plot. However, with Flanagan confirming that he intends to build the story slowly, he will have time to capture its unique tone, and it will not be the first time that he has crossed genres.
Flanagan might be best known for horror, but his projects feature elements of other genres. Carrie captures an authentic high school atmosphere, selling the psychological drama before the iconic prom scene. His King adaptation, The Life of Chuck, leans into whimsy and fantasy, and Doctor Sleep introduces a dark fantasy tone that already proves he can blend genres. These might be minor when compared to the extensive lore of The Dark Tower, but Flanagan is ready for this career first, and with even its author calling him “the King whisperer,” he is the perfect director to do the story justice.
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