Mike Flanagan’s Upcoming Prime Video Fantasy Series Has An Ambitious Long-Term Plan
Although Mike Flanagan’s upcoming Prime Video fantasy show has a tough task ahead of it, the Stephen King series wisely set up a plan before beginning to adapt an epic saga. There are few things worse than a great adaptation that stumbles as it reaches its ending. HBO’s George R.R. Martin adaptation Game of Thrones is likely the most infamous case of this, primarily because the show was television’s biggest hit at the height of its success.
Thus, the fact that the storytelling of the Song of Ice & Fire Saga’s adaptation went off the rails in its final seasons was made more frustrating by the sheer size of its expectant audience. However, the abrupt cancellation of Prime Video’s ambitious Robert Jordan adaptation The Wheel of Time was another high-profile instance of a series taunting viewers with a promising adaptation of a beloved text, only to be cut short long before fulfilling its full potential.
Fortunately, The Haunting of Hill House writer/ director Mike Flanagan has a plan in place to ensure that this fate won’t befall his upcoming epic dark fantasy saga for Prime Video. After Flanagan’s Carrie adaptation proved a hit for the streaming service, Prime Video soon renewed the show for a sophomore season. However, it is Flanagan’s take on King’s epic novel series The Dark Tower that will truly test the filmmaker’s mettle.
Mike Flanagan Has Multi-Season Plan For The Dark Tower
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In an interview with The Process Unlocked (via IGN), Flanagan explained that faithfully adapting the books in King’s Dark Tower series is the basis of his ambitious plan for the fantasy epic. This might sound jarringly obvious to anyone unfamiliar with the saga, but the sheer size of The Dark Tower book series would mean that the show’s run would amount to five full seasons followed by two movies.
All in all, the book series runs over 4,000 pages long in total, depending on the format and edition. When Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy runs a mere 1,000-1,500 and even The Witcher novel series is about 500 pages shorter, it becomes obvious that simply adapting The Dark Tower books faithfully isn’t as straightforward as it might seem at first glance.
Nonetheless, a confident Flanagan explained that trying to beat the system by jumping in midway through the narrative one only overwhelms the audience, resulting in them feeling completely flummoxed by an unfamiliar fictional universe. Since Flanagan extensively rewrote King’s Carrie in his acclaimed Prime Video show, the writer/ director certainly seems qualified to say which novels should be adapted faithfully and which need significant revision.
The Dark Tower Can Be Mike Flanagan’s Biggest Project Yet
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That said, the fact that Flanagan has a plan in place for the show should not be mistaken for a guaranteed success. The Dark Tower would make Flanagan’s biggest project ever by quite a stretch, with five seasons and two movies compared to Carrie‘s two seasons. Until Carrie, Flanagan’s acclaimed shows were all standalone hits, although this wasn’t always his decision.
Four years before Carrie, Flanagan had another big, ambitious multi-season adaptation of a fantasy/horror book series planned when he brought ’90s YA horror icon Christopher Pike’s The Midnight Club to life for Netflix. The show’s season 1 cliffhanger ending was meant to run into a second outing that would have adapted Pike’s Remember Me while tying off various major plot threads in the process.
However, The Midnight Club was canceled after only one season, meaning Carrie‘s season 2 renewal marks the first time that Flanagan will release a sophomore season for any of his small-screen efforts. Admittedly, the jump to The Dark Tower‘s five seasons and two movies sounds ambitious, but the director’s plan for the legendary Stephen King saga still sounds ingenious provided its funding and production come together.
The Dark Tower
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