Mike Flanagan Has A Big Stephen King Decision To Make About His Dark Tower TV Adaptation

Summary

• Flanagan’s success in streaming horror continues as he prepares to take on Stephen King’s series, The Dark Tower.
• The decision of whether to adapt the 1982 or 2003 version of The Gunslinger book will be critical for Flanagan’s upcoming project.
• Despite risks, Flanagan will likely opt for the revised 2003 edition of The Gunslinger for his TV adaptation of The Dark Tower.

After creating hits like The Haunting of Hill House, and more recently, The Fall of the House of Usher, Mike Flanagan is on top of streaming horror right now, and his success is only going to improve when he takes on Stephen King’s famous dark fantasy series, The Dark Tower, however Flanagan has a big decision to make before he can start adapting. Mike Flanagan is a filmmaker best known for his horror projects Oculus, Gerald’s Game, Midnight Mass, and Doctor Sleep. After finding incredible success at Netflix, the director is turning to Amazon Studios with even more new projects.

Mike Flanagan has taken on several adaptations of famous horror writers, from Shirley Jackson to Edgar Allen Poe, however his collaborations with Stephen King have been consistent and long-running. In 2017, Flanagan adapted King’s novel Gerald’s Game into a feature film for Netflix. Two years later, he took on Doctor Sleep. And now, Flanagan has two Stephen King adaptations on the docket: The Life of Chuck and The Dark Tower series. Adapting Stephen King is already a difficult job, but The Dark Tower is even harder. Flanagan will have big decisions to make about how he wants the story to proceed.

There Are Two Versions Of Stephen King’s The Gunslinger Book

King wrote a 1982 version and a 2003 version

One of the most important decisions Mike Flanagan will make about The Dark Tower television adaptation will be which version he uses.

Although
The Dark Tower
series originated with the book, “The Gunslinger,” in 1982, it turns out that Stephen King released a new, edited version of the book in 2003.

This second “The Gunslinger” was not just a special edition either. King made significant changes to the book in order to make it more accessible for new readers. He made the plot more linear, fixed later plot holes, and added approximately 35 pages of new content to the story.

This leaves Flanagan with a decision to make. He could either stick with the original text and adapt the 1982 “The Gunslinger,” or he could take on the newer 2003 version. While both stories are the same at their cores, one is more straightforward, while the other is harder to pin down. In this way, there are pros and cons to both. If Flanagan picks the 1982 version, he may be making original fans of the series happier, and allowing himself to make a more complicated show. However, the complexity is a risk that Flanagan may not want to take.

Mike Flanagan Will Probably Adapt The Revised & Expanded Edition For The Dark Tower

The 2003 version is the most up to date

In the end, it seems likely that Mike Flanagan’s The Dark Tower TV adaptation will use the 2003 version of “The Gunslinger”. This is because the 2003 version is the most up to date, and is likely the one King prefers. The fact that King rewrote and expanded “The Gunslinger” means that he felt that the original needed to be changed. Therefore, it makes sense that the television adaptation would follow in these footsteps. Using the new version would also likely help television audiences understand The Dark Tower better.

The most recent adaptation of The Dark Tower was a 2017 movie adaptation starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey.