How Closely Mike Flanagan's Dark Tower Series Will Follow Stephen King's Books
by Michael Boyle · /FilmThe 7.5-book "Dark Tower" series is Stephen King's magnum opus. Spanning over three decades of his career, these novels not only tell King's largest continuous story but also his most intertextual one. And while Hollywood has seemingly adapted every other King book without haste, folks have waited years for a proper adaptation of these novels with little luck so far. The 2017 film version of King's "Dark Tower" book "The Gunslinger" was a disappointment that failed to spawn a sequel, but fans' hopes were renewed with the 2022 announcement that Mike Flanagan is developing a "Dark Tower" TV show for Amazon. Yet, three years have already passed with precious few updates.
Still, there's plenty of reason for hope. After all, Flanagan has already adapted a few King books to the screen with great success. In addition to adapting "Gerald's Game" for Netflix in 2017, he pulled off the impossible by making a worthy sequel to "The Shining" with 2019's "Doctor Sleep." That said, the crowning achievement of his career to date had nothing to do with King at all: In 2023, he created "The Fall of the House of Usher," a Netflix miniseries that stunningly adapts Edgar Allan Poe's short story of the same name (and others along with it). So many Stephen King adaptations crash and burn due to poor writing and direction, but most people feel certain this won't be an issue with Flanagan in charge of "The Dark Tower."
Unfortunately, part of what makes the "Dark Tower" books so important to King fans is also what makes them so hard to adapt. As Flanagan explained on the "Kingcast" podcast, the novels' intertextual nature has led to far more complications than most TV adaptations have to deal with.
The Dark Tower's multiverse storyline is a copyright nightmare
Flanagan pointed out that he won't be able to make a 100% faithful adaptation because Amazon doesn't own the rights to every character in the "Dark Tower" books. Randall Flagg, for instance, is a major "Dark Tower" character who has appeared in multiple adaptations of "The Stand." Father Callahan, meanwhile, has similarly been featured in several adaptations of "'Salem's Lot." Because other studios have bought the rights to these books, though, they technically own the rights to these characters too. And while some characters are important enough that Flanagan plans to do whatever it takes to include them, he'll have to find a workable substitute for others. As he explained:
"[Randall] Flagg, you have to. You know you have to get into Father Callahan, like that's not negotiable. Which means that you're going to Warner Brothers, cause they've got 'Salem's Lot,' you got to talk to them. Crimson King is actually a whole different thing, because there's a history of adaptation with 'Hearts in Atlantis,' which pulls in all sorts of stuff based on that deal that shouldn't have been pulled in because it's not in the movie. 'Low Men in Yellow Coats' also, you gotta go to Warner Brothers, because when they optioned the story, that was also included, whether they put it in the movie or not."
If this "Dark Tower" series was an HBO show, as many fans once dreamed, this would all be a bit easier, seeing as Warner Bros. owns the rights to so many King adaptations at the moment. But alas, the series is moving forward at Amazon, which adds an extra layer of difficulty for Flanagan.
Mike Flanagan may have to replace fan-favorite characters
Flanagan also acknowledged it's "not logistically possible" to include every King character from another book that appears in the "Dark Tower" novels. It's a good thing he doesn't have to, then, as he has plenty of replacement characters to work with. As Flanagan put it:
"What are the other characters in the King universe that could fulfill a role like that and get the fans excited, even though you're changing it? For me, I'm like what about Abra Stone? When you go into the what if you can't get Father Callahan, which is always a thing that comes up, and I think we can, but what if you can't, well who can fill that role? Who's a character that's presumed dead in another King story who can come into this story and have a similar arc of redemption?"
Abra Stone is a character from "Doctor Sleep," a movie Flanagan will have an easier time connecting to the show (given that he's the guy who directed it).
The most important thing, Flanagan noted, is to make sure the connections to other King works are fun for King fans but not necessary for casual viewers to pick up on. He doesn't want viewers to think they have to do homework to understand anything, which is something the books themselves certainly agreed with. If you hadn't read "'Salem's Lot," for instance, you'd still probably enjoy Father Callahan's arc in the "Dark Tower" novels.
The Dark Tower TV show might have to cut the books' references to other movies
The other hassle with adapting the "Dark Tower" books it that they don't just reference other King stories; they reference seemingly everything, from the Emerald City in "The Wizard of Oz" to the golden snitch from the "Harry Potter" franchise, "Star Wars," the Beatles, and "The Magnificent Seven" (with "Seven Samurai" also serving as a major influence). Part of the weirdness of the later novels is how much it feels like the characters' fictional world and our real world are colliding, to the point where even popular fiction from our world is inserting itself into the characters' lives as a real thing.
This makes for a fascinating read but a major headache for a showrunner. Much like with the references to other King books, Flanagan will have to pick and choose which are worth fighting for the rights to include and which are better off changing for the "Dark Tower" show. He summed up the challenge as follows:
"How do you make it so the King fans will lean forward and be excited about this particular change, but that people who haven't read the books and are being introduced to this connected universe will be able to recognize it from their cinematic experience?"
Mike Flanagan has a few back-up Stephen King characters in mind for the series
Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the potential replacement characters Flanagan mentioned are from "Doctor Sleep." In addition to Abra Stone, he brought up Dick Hallorann as a potential replacement for Father Callahan. Hallorann's a tricky example, because he survived the book version of "The Shining" but he was killed definitively in the Kubrick adaptation. "It: Welcome to Derry" is able to bring the character back because it takes place before "The Shining," but the "Dark Tower" series won't have that luxury.
Luckily, the world-building of the "Dark Tower" books provides plenty of fun options to bring Hallorann back to life. The series adaptation could establish that he's from one of the alternate realities where he didn't die at the Overlook Hotel, or it could have him simply wake up in Mid-World after being killed in "The Shining," much like another character does in "The Gunslinger."
While Callahan is perhaps the most important character to be introduced in another King story, the most interesting casting choice will be how the "Dark Tower" show handles the inclusion of the author himself. Bravely and controversially, King appears as a character in the sixth "Dark Tower" book and interacts with some of the characters. Will the series include the same storyline? Or will it modify it for TV so that it's a fictional Flanagan the characters meet instead? The possibilities are endless, and it's not clear at all which direction Flanagan should take.
Luckily, The Dark Tower season 1 won't have to deal with these problems
The good news for Flanagan is that the truly weird intertextual elements of the "Dark Tower" books don't start rearing their head until the third novel, and King waits until the fifth book before fully messing with the fourth wall. This means that season 1 (and likely season 2) of the "Dark Tower" TV series will be spared from having to make these tough choices. Instead, it can focus on simply being a fun, self-contained Western fantasy/horror show and worry about the source material's wilder stuff another day.
Flanagan thinks this is the key that will help his show pull off its biggest swings. If it gets off on the right foot with viewers and proves its potential as a long-running show, it should have an easier time getting the rights to other King characters and keeping its audience on board with everything. As he put it:
"The gift of 'The Dark Tower' is if you do it right, and you start at the beginning, you're dealing with one character following another character in a barren wasteland, where there's not even a structure to distract you. It is one person following another person. It's very simple, and everything is added. And it's added at the right cadence that you're meeting new characters, and the world is expanding, so that by the time you're arguing about what to do with Father Callahan, and to what extent the Emerald City is going to come into play, by then you've already built enough of this that the audience is with you whether they're familiar with the source material."