After the horrific attempt of 2017, rumours about the adaptation of the Dark Tower You're on your way. Mike Flanagan is the project manager and the project seems to be about to be launched on track, at least as soon as the shootings resume following the Hollywood strike. A little back on the guy's career seemed wise, to see whether or not we're right to be eager!
The history of the Tower
« The Dark Tower is the Jupiter of the solar system of my imagination »
La Dark TowerIt's a poem by Robert Browning, « The knight Roland came to the Black Tower ». Inspiration sufficient to Stephen King to begin, while still a student, a narrative which he will appoint The Pistolero and which takes root by this well-known line: « The man in black fled through the desert, and the pistolero followed him. ». A short, nervous novel, long left unanswered before King pulled out of his drafts to make it a book that will be published (and quickly exhausted) about ten years later. Between now and today, The Dark Tower, composed of 8 volumes (if one counts the Wind key, released last but actually intercalating in the middle of the Saga) for more than 30 million copies sold, is considered by King as « The Jupiter of the Solar System of My Imagination ». A dantesque work, mixing SF, postapocalyptic western and absolutely hallucinating meta sequences, based on the story of a man: Roland de Gilead, the last of the pistoleros.
While it is possible to use all superlatives to qualify King's literary work (besides husked in the awesome podcast episodes of The 19th palace, When it comes to cinematographic adaptations, the praises fade. Real production chaos, rights of The Dark Tower From hand to hand, between different directors (J.J. Abrams, Ron Howard) and several studios (Universal, Warner and Sony). Finally, a film will be released in 2017 with Danish Nikolaj Arcel with levers and Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey at the casting. A real oven as critical as it is commercial, for an ultra flat feature film of just an hour and thirty that everyone has already forgotten (or at least they wish you!).
Flanagan, the last pistolero?
Yet, for some time, Mike Flanagan refers to the project to adapt The Dark Tower for Amazon as a series. He who participated in the successes in terms of intimate horror with his series Netflix (The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor or Midnight Sermons) but who also knew how to completely crash for the same platform (The Midnight Club) would therefore be the owner of Stephen King's Gargantuesque adapted project. If it is not necessary here to advance the last gossip from Hollywood or to make criticism-fiction of a work not even boxed, it is quite possible to survey Flanagan's filmography by trying to guess, behind each work, the potential qualities that it could put to use for this project. So here's a non-exhaustive overview of the man's most striking films and series...
Oculus (2013)
After several student films and a first feature film in 2011 (Absentia), Flanagan realized Oculus. Performing a Karen Gillan sure that a mirror is responsible for the death of his parents, the film is produced by Blumhouse and shot in festival before landing on DTV in 2015. A film in half tint, not free of defects, but already featuring this sensitive horror that will make Flanagan's foot in his future productions. Exits the big monsters full frame and succession of jump scares Outright, Oculus Rather offers the sensation of a disturbing presence through its mirror history. The feature film, however, is not absolved from disturbing horrific visions, including a scene linked to an apple that at the time knew how to tap into the eye of a certain... Stephen King!
« I know a screener of OCULUS and loved it. Very scary. I may never eat an apple again.»
Flanagan will then sign a horrific thriller, Not a noisewith Kate Siegel in the main role (she already played a secondary role in Oculus). At the same time she will become one of her fetish actresses and also her wife... In short, let's go on the horrific thriller (forgetable) Don't sleep and on her prequel Ouija : Origins, to reach Jessie in 2017.
Jessie (2017)
adapted from King's eponymous novel, Jessie offers a devoid (or almost) of any fantastic story... Joining their country house to spend a weekend in love, Gérald wants to spice up their sex life currently drifting. His wife Jessie (Carla Gugino) bends to his fantasies, not without feeling a strong discomfort, and while he abandons himself to the chemical excitation of two viagra pills swallowed hastily, he ties his wife to bed while urging to call for help. More and more uncomfortable in the face of the rape sham he wants to stage, she asks him to stop and untie her. A violent dispute broke out, quickly stopped net by the net collapse of Gérald: a heart attack. Jessie thus finds herself tied to her bed, in their isolated country house with her husband's corpse at her feet. A second nightmare begins then...
If Jessie paper version offers scenes of self-mutilation barely sustainable, the film does not demerit. He clearly does not climb into the heights of the novel – a King disconcerting by his almost total absence of fantastic – but one feels Flanagan in his element. This insidious horror, a tortured woman figure, an important psychologization of the characters and this sobriety that goes through the entire film. Unfortunately, on the aesthetic side, we're closer to the telefilm than to the grandiose work, but it's not that it's worth a look!
Side Dark Tower, Flanagan will be able to easily draw from this Jessie His ability to create strong female characters (we obviously think of Susannah's character, but we could also mention Susan...). Moreover, being rubbed at the King and showing that he knew the codes will be two other qualities to put on his resume! Indeed, The Dark Tower is built as the key work of the writer of Maine, linking in a few ways all his most important novels (whether it is simple or not) aster eggs to whole characters transposed from one universe to another).
The Haunting (2018)
As early as 2018, just after his Jessie for Netflix, Flanagan starts his anthological series The Haunting... Each season will represent a total new conformation, new characters and a new story, but always centered around the theme of the haunted house. Obviously inspired by Shirley Jackson and his book The haunted house (see The Devil's House, film by Robert Wise adapted from this novel), we can draw a new parallel with the Kingian universe.
Indeed, the mini series Red Rose is also taken from Jackson's novel, directed by Craig R. Baxley (2002) is written by the King himself. In a way, with his The Haunting, Flanagan walks again in the footsteps of the American storyteller... But for the moment, not much in common with The Dark Tower. The horror is used by Flanagan in an entirely realistic universe, with rather discreet touches, and thus searches the psychology of his characters. All this remains far from a post-apocalyptic western such as the Dark Tower, where the creepy creatures flourish!
However, Flanagan's most important quality in The Hauting Maybe it's his ability to make people's past live. Indeed, in the Dark TowerThe flashbacks are legion! Between the formation of pistolero, his childhood friends or his great love, it is from the past that King made them emerge in the novel. A mastery of the narrative in flashback (o how dangerous) therefore seems necessary for a future adaptation... Unless the Flanagan scenario makes the choice (perhaps wise) to loosen some of these very many backwards.
Doctor Sleep (2019)
Roman who earned a brief visit from King to the European continent for his promotion (rare fact!), the continuation of Shining found himself on screen by Mike Flanagan. The writer will participate in the production of the film and he will tell him that he « expie » the original work of Stanley Kubrick... King was indeed not a fan of the adaptation of the father of 2001: Space Odyssey, where Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) was more prey to mere murderous madness than to uncontrolled alcoholism, unlike the character depicted in the book.
Doctor Sleep So, a film that takes its time (there is also a long version, it seems), poses its intrigue, searches its characters to offer us an adult Danny (Ewan McGregor), struggling to remain sober (a sense that King knows only too well since between 1978 and 1986 he was addicted to hard drugs and alcohol!). Unfortunately for poor Danny, a series of « vampires » crossed his path, determined to suck his shining (his ability as a medium). Very unequal, he has the audacity to attack the King at the root and attempt a rereading of Shining (or a mercantile fruit, depending on the point of view). Too clean, Doctor Sleep is, however, not without interest, and if it were to be drawn from a Flemish quality which would be useful for an adaptation of the The Dark TowerMaybe it's his ability to dig deep into the Kingian myth and manage to carry a wide gallery of characters to the screen... Indispensable quality since Roland, the Dark Tower involves a large number of protagonists: his ka-tet (its community, to define the term hastily), a good tripotée of allies and just as much antagonists, many characters of the past as well...
Midnight Sermons (2021)
After the films, Flanagan returns in series for Netflix: he looks at a small island community, unworked, suddenly motivated by the arrival of a new, frantic priest. But this perfect Church man varnish reveals deep flaws, and many disappearances as well as worrying events soon disturb the island's tranquillity.
Netflix mini series again, Midnight Sermons enrolled after the awesome The Third Day (2020). Lovecraftian, islander too, she has everything to crush her rival of the Netflix stable, and yet... If the staging is less overwhelming, Flanagan succeeds in laying out an exciting story that could be an adaptation of King par excellence: the old demons of alcoholism who are watching, a small community of a poor America, questioning the faith, etc. In short, all the ingredients are there for a clean Kingian adaptation in order, which is finally not officially one.
And Midnight SermonsOne can draw the ability that Flanagan has to live a community of characters and make appear on the screen the influences that the different characters have on each other. A prerequisite obviously necessary to achieve adaptation The Dark Tower, constantly moving universe where morals are wavering, never leaving room for established manicheism. The religious theme (and the questioning of the faith) manipulated by Flanagan will also be important when it comes to adapting the King's cycle as it traverses many of his books: the character of Father Donald Callahan (appearing in Salem and in the Tower), Mother Abigaël in Le Wheat, the faith of the child of Desolation…
The Midnight Club (2022)
Last production and one of the worst, which we will not dwell on. Still for Netflix, still in mini-series, still in horror, the good idea of The Midnight Club was to offer stories of thrills told by kids locked up in an orphanage. The bad, to make it an endless series, frankly not exciting, rather flat visually and milleuse as possible. Adapting Christopher Pike (it is nicknamed « the Stephen King teen », how Flanagan is never really far away), The Midnight Club is a complete oven.
However, before concluding, it remains to mention some black spots at Flanagan's CV, including the ability to make live on screen the multiple bugs that require a story like The Dark Tower. Indeed, before adapting brilliantly Lord of the RingsPeter Jackson had passed through Braindead and Bad Taste, Two tops of horror gore. A healthy school to let the multiple creatures of Tolkien's work, without going through the digital whole...
And for the Dark TowerThe challenge is great! Between pure creatures (such as homarstruosity) and mechanical robots/creatures, the spectrum of effects to handle to adapt correctly The Dark Tower seems considerable. While Flanagan has relied almost exclusively on digital effects in its previous productions, let us be sure that it makes the choice of hybridization between practical effects and CGI for its project of the Dark Tower, like the work done for the interesting adaptation of Dondons and Dragons earlier this year.
In the meantime The Fall of the Usher House (an adaptation of Poe, after Shirley Jackson and King) available on October 12, we have now toured Flanagan's outstanding works and how he could emerge in the adaptation of the literary mastodon. The glimmer of hope to see The Dark Tower So decently adapted persists. And in the meantime, « that your days are long and your nights are pleasant ».
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