The creative fruits of the partnership between Stephen King and filmmaker Mike Flanagan continue to grow, as Amazon has reportedly inked the prolific horror director for an 8-episode limited series adaptation of King’s first major novel, Carrie. That book started King’s stratospheric ascent to the top of best-seller charts as the creator of innumerable horror and thriller stories. And in recent years, Flanagan has become one of the leading adapters of those stories, beginning with Gerald’s Game for Netflix and the feature film adaptation of The Shining follow-up Doctor Sleep in 2019. Flanagan’s upcoming feature The Life of Chuck is likewise adapted from a King novella, and will be released by Neon in 2025 after it won the Audience Award after screening this autumn at the Toronto Film Festival.
Carrie, meanwhile, will have Flanagan as its show runner, a position he’s filled on critically lauded series such as Midnight Mass and Fall of the House of Usher. It will be a new take on the sad life of Carrie White, a teenaged high school student who suffers under a domineering and zealously religious mother, only to find herself with awakening telekinetic abilities shortly after the arrival of her first menstruation. Sissy Spacek iconically played the character in its initial 1976 film adaptation, a film version that also included Piper Laurie, John Travolta, William Katt and P. J. Soles. Subsequent attempts to revisit the material have made much less of a splash, including the bomb that was 1999’s The Rage: Carrie 2, a 2002 television version, and a 2013 full-on remake starring Chloë Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore.
The work of Stephen King, meanwhile, continues to be adapted with wild abandon–we’ve ranked more than 60 of them to date. This is at least partially because the author famously makes some of his stories available for only $1 cinematic options, with a few caveats. Upcoming King adaptations on both the big and small screen include Edgar Wright directing The Running Man with Glen Powell playing the role previously played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Francis Lawrence directing The Long Walk, and Jack Bender directing The Institute. There’s also A24’s version of King’s Fairy Tale being made into another series from Paul Greengrass and J.H. Wyman, whereas Gary Dauberman’s disappointing Salem’s Lot just landed on Max last week.
There will certainly be no shortage of Flanagan fans and general horror geeks excited for the prospects of what he can potentially do with Carrie, though at the same time there may also be some disappointed people who were hoping that Flanagan might next turn his gaze toward King’s magnum opus, The Dark Tower, which was so painfully “adapted” into a stunningly poor movie in 2017. Flanagan currently owns the rights, and is presumably considering possibilities for how King’s most ambitious story could best be realized with more accuracy. In the meantime, we’ll keep our eyes peeled for Life of Chuck and any impending Carrie news.
