After signing a multi-year deal with Amazon Studios and regretting the cancellation of his series the midnight clubproducer, director and screenwriter Mike Flanagan steals headlines again, now to announce that his production house Intrepid Pictures holds the rights to the dark towerthe celebrated series of novels by the incomparable writer Stephen King.
As stated to Deadlinethe plan is to convert that original material into a television series.
«[La Torre Oscura] It’s been my Holy Grail for most of my life,” Flanagan said. “In fact, we have those rights outside of our agreement with Amazon, which doesn’t mean they can’t or won’t support it at some point. It is not known. But it’s something we’ve been developing ourselves and we’re passionate about getting it off the ground.”
Amazon knows that Intrepid Pictures has its hands on that literary saga, so if its executives are interested in hosting the current adaptation project, “we would be delighted,” he added.
The creator of The Haunting of Hill House He also revealed that he already has ready a script for the pilot episode of this adaptation of the dark towerideally composed of no less than five seasons. And if the television project is successful, Flanagan does not rule out expanding it through two feature films.
“I have a pilot script that I am delighted with, a very detailed outline for the first season and a more general outline for the following ones,” he said. “I think if we can get it going, there are other writers I’ve worked with that I’d like to include in the process; I think they would be great for a small, intimate writers’ room where we could keep moving forward.”
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In the same interview, Mike Flanagan recalled how Stephen King, being someone so protective of his vast novelistic work, agreed to give him the dark tower on a silver platter
This happened because I sent him a very, very detailed outline of what I wanted to do with the books. And it was in response to that, that he gave us the rights,” she recounted. “I wouldn’t want to be involved in a project like this if we were going to blaspheme Stephen King material, but he’s been very supportive of us and he’s very excited about what we want to do.”
The books of the dark tower they merge the genres of western, horror and fantasy, and their plot has as its starting point the journey of a gunman in his search for an enigmatic tower. To date, they are considered some of the most difficult literary works to bring to the screen. The disastrous film of the same name with Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, released in 2017, remained as an example of this for posterity.
“In more than half of my life, I have closed my eyes and I have been able to see a lot of this unfold,” added Mike Flanagan regarding all the years he has imagined translating those novels into the audiovisual realm. «I have dreamed of this. That close-up that appears in the incredible first sentence of the first book, The gunman… I’ve had that image going around in my head since I was a student. At some point you will have to get out of there. I really need to get her out of my head.”
Flanagan is no stranger to the Stephen King universe. He previously wrote and directed the films Gerald’s game (2017) and doctor sleep (2019), based on the homonymous novels by the master of terror.
Antonio G. Spindola I have very bad memory. Out of solidarity with my memories, I choose to lose myself too. Preferably in a movie theater.