Mike Flanagan Explains How New Dark Tower Adaptation Will Avoid Mistakes of Idris Elba Film

The director explained where the new adaptation will begin and why that matters.

On The Process Unlocked podcast, Mike Flanagan described how he plans to bring Stephen King’s The Dark Tower to the screen. He intends to follow the order of the books and start with The Gunslinger, so viewers can get to know the vast universe gradually:

“The problem with other approaches is that people try to start in the middle or pick some other starting point. You can’t throw the viewer face-first into this huge universe. It’s too overwhelming.”

Mike Flanagan

In Flanagan’s view, King already found a way to tell a large-scale story without loading the reader with detail on the first pages. The task now is to keep the same structure and reveal the world as the heroes travel:

“The story of The Dark Tower begins with two people in a desert. It’s the simplest possible start to a story. There is nothing in front of the reader that could distract them, and King builds the universe from that point, stone by stone. […] That’s exactly how my adaptation works. I simply followed the books and their order.”

Mike Flanagan

Mike Flanagan explained how the new Dark Tower will avoid the mistakes of the Idris Elba film — Image source: Donald M. Grant, Publisher / Michael Whelan

Flanagan originally planned to make five seasons of a series and finish the adaptation with two feature-length films. It is not yet known whether those plans still stand. The start of filming and the expected premiere date also remain unknown.

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