Mike Flanagan is so eager to adapt The Dark Tower that he’s already visualizing one major death

If the concept of a “blank check” in Hollywood (where a filmmaker does something so successful that they essentially get free reign from a studio) can be applied to people who have found most of their success in television, then The Haunting Of Hill House, The Haunting Of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, Midnight Club, and The Fall Of The House Of Usher creator/director Mike Flanagan certainly deserves one (and Amazon seems keen to give it to him). And if you were to ask what Flanagan wanted to spend his check on, it would definitely be The Dark Tower—Stephen King’s epic fantasy/sci-fi saga about a cowboy trying to kill a wizard before he can help a supervillain who shares a name with a prog-rock band destroy all of reality. (Which previously got a bad adaptation in 2017.)

Flanagan announced at the end of 2022 that he had personally obtained the rights from King after showing the author a “very, very detailed outline” of his plans, and that doing a faithful adaptation with “five seasons of television, followed by two stand-alone features” would be his “Holy Grail.” This weekend, during an appearance at the Emerald City Comic Con (via Popverse), Flanagan teased that he’s so excited to get working on his Dark Tower adaptation (which does not have a home yet) that he’s already thinking about how he’s going to stage one specific scene that happens in the final entry of the eight-book saga.

The scene in question is the death of a major character, one that involves another major character giving a eulogy that Flanagan says made him cry when he first read it (to the point where his copy of the book is apparently tear-stained because of it). Constant Readers, as King calls his fans, will know the scene in question and the complete wackadoo circumstances around this heartbreaking death, so the series seems to be in good hands if that’s the specific scene that Flanagan dreams of adapting. (Spoil it for yourself if you must, but just know that it will sound absurd out of context… and also that it is just as absurd in context. And treat yourself to some Googling afterward to see just how dark this whole thing is.)

While we’re serving the Beam, if ya ken it, Flanagan’s frequent collaborator (and wife) Kate Siegel was also there and was asked if there were any characters in the Dark Tower series that she might want to play. Proving herself to be a cool person with good taste, she mentioned that she’d like to be the voice of Blaine The Mono, an evil train that the heroes have to face halfway through the series, or the gigantic mecha-bear named Shardik (who maybe doesn’t even speak?).

Again, it seems like The Dark Tower is in good hands if Flanagan really does get a chance to make this faithful adaptation of his dreams—but it’s worth noting that this is still an “if.” He has that big development deal with Amazon, and Amazon has tried to adapt The Dark Tower in the past, but nothing is official yet as far as we know.