Mike Flanagan Reveals How Carrie TV Show Influenced His New Stephen King The Mist Adaptation
Similar to his approach on the upcoming Carrie television series, Mike Flanagan has found a fresh way into Stephen King's The Mist.
Mike Flanagan isn't wandering blindly into the swirling ether of monsters.
Similar to his upcoming Carrie TV series (debuting this fall), the acclaimed horror-focused filmmaker has a fresh and targeted approach to a new film adaptation of Stephen King's The Mist.
How Mike Flanagan is Modeling Stephen King Mist Film After Carrie TV Show
“With Carrie and with The Mist, they’ve both been done spectacularly well already as feature films,” Flanagan told Entertainment Weekly at this year's San Diego Comic-Con. “So with Carrie, it was very much about finding a new path, trying to find something new to build. The Mist is the same.”
Of course, The Mist was previously brought to the big screen in 2007 by Flanagan forebear Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile), who shocked audiences with an incredibly bleak ending that King only toyed with in the original novella. Interestingly, Darabont turned down more money for the budget in favor of keeping his favored conclusion.
"It’s one of the most brutal movies I’ve ever seen,” Flanagan said. “That ending is jaw-dropping. My way into the story, through the story, and out of that story is very different. When I presented that to Steve [King]—that was also important because he loves Frank’s movie—it’s like, 'Why are we doing this? What are we gonna do that justifies itself?' So it’s a different type of adaptation for me."
The writer-director-producer has shown an affinity for the works of King across three feature films—Gerald's Game, Doctor Sleep and The Life of Chuck—and now Carrie. He's also developing a series adaptation of the notoriously tricky-to-adapt Dark Tower books.
At present, however, he's currently in the thick of production on a new Exorcist movie starring Scarlett Johansson and Chiwetel Ejiofor, Hamish Linklater, Carl Lumbly, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, John Leguizamo, Carla Gugino, John Gallagher Jr., Rahul Kohli, Samantha Sloyan, Matt Biedel, Robert Longstreet, Sasha Calle, Gil Bellows, Benjamin Pajak, Kate Siegel, and breakout Hamnet star Jacobi Jupe.
When Does Mike Flanagan's Carrie TV Show Come Out?
The Carrie television show arrives on Amazon's Prime Video service Wednesday, Oct. 7.
The cast features Summer H. Howell (Carrie White) Samantha Sloyan (Margaret White), Siena Agudong (Sue Snell), Alison Thornton (Chris Hargensen), Joel Oulette (Tommy Ross), Josie Totah (Tina), Arthur Conti (Billy), Thalia Dudek (Emaline), Amber Midthunder (Miss Desjardin) and Matthew Lillard (Principal Grayle).
Flanagan, who wrote and directed all four episodes, serves as executive producer with King.
