Mike Flanagan’s Dark Tower TV Series Update Suggests No Greenlight Yet
Mike Flanagan has shared a fresh update on his long-gestating television adaptation of The Dark Tower, and it doesn’t sound like production is anywhere close to starting.
Flanagan—who’s behind Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and Midnight Mass—has spent years trying to bring Stephen King’s beloved fantasy saga to the small screen. While the script for the first season has King’s approval, Flanagan says he’s still running into roadblocks when it comes to securing permission to begin filming the project he’s called his “Holy Grail.”
Speaking about the scale of the undertaking, Flanagan said The Dark Tower is “one of the most complicated properties to get started.” He added that “getting the green light on Dark Tower is a much longer and more involved process than anything else I’ve ever approached in my life.”
What Flanagan is prioritizing—and why The Dark Tower isn’t moving yet
For now, Flanagan’s focus is his adaptation of Carrie for Amazon’s Prime Video. He developed it as part of a multi-year deal he signed with the streamer earlier this year, and The Dark Tower is not currently included in that agreement.
Even so, Flanagan has suggested that Prime Video could eventually get behind The Dark Tower. His vision has been to build the series across five seasons, followed by two standalone movies—though the key question for fans is still whether that plan will ever leave the planning stage.
And based on his latest comments, that uncertainty remains very real, including for Flanagan himself.
Why fans still want it to happen
Support for Flanagan’s take on The Dark Tower is especially strong because the most recent big-screen attempt didn’t land well. The 2017 film featured Idris Elba as Roland Deschain and Matthew McConaughey as his enemy, Walter Padick, and it was widely criticized by reviewers.
After the 2017 Nikolaj Arcel-directed movie, Flanagan said the project couldn’t be allowed to end there. He stated, “We can’t let that be the final word. We really can’t.”
