Mike Flanagan has promised that his upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's epic fantasy saga, The Dark Tower, will stay true to the novels' expansive narrative. Given Flanagan's successful track record with King's works like Doctor Sleep and Gerald's Game, fans have good reason to trust his commitment to authenticity. Excitingly, IGN has exclusively revealed that Flanagan has enlisted none other than Stephen King himself to join his creative team, known as the Ka-tet, for this ambitious project.

In a roundtable interview promoting The Monkey, IGN asked King if he would contribute new material to Flanagan's adaptation of The Dark Tower, similar to his contributions to the 2020 Paramount+ series The Stand. King responded, "All I can say is it's happening. I am writing stuff now and I think that's all I want to say because the next thing you know, I'll stir up a bunch of stuff I don't necessarily want to stir up yet. I'm in process right now, and to say too much feels like a jinx."

The Essentials: Stephen King's Dark Tower Multiverse

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The Dark Tower is one of King's most celebrated and personal works, with the first novel, The Gunslinger, originating in 1970. The extent of King's involvement in Flanagan's adaptation remains speculative. Previously, King contributed an epilogue to the Paramount+ series The Stand, enhancing the closure for the character Frannie Goldsmith. Given the extensive mythology and interconnectedness of The Dark Tower with nearly all of King's fiction, the possibilities for King to enrich the narrative are vast.

With King actively writing new material for the project, fans can expect it to seamlessly integrate into Flanagan's vision. Flanagan has emphasized in a 2022 IGN interview that his adaptation will be a faithful representation of King's work, stating, "it would look like the books" and that "the way not to do The Dark Tower is to try to turn it into something else, to try to make it Star Wars or make it Lord of the Rings."

Flanagan further elaborated, "It is what it is, what it is is perfect. It's just as exciting as all of those things and just as immersive. It's a story about a tiny group of people, all the odds in the whole world are against them, and they come together. As long as it's that, it'll be fine and there won't be a dry eye in the house."

This promise is particularly reassuring following the disappointment of the 2017 film adaptation of The Dark Tower, which starred Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey and haphazardly rearranged elements from King's seven novels.

While the exact release date and format of Flanagan's The Dark Tower adaptation remain undisclosed, the prolific filmmaker has plenty of King-related projects on his plate. Flanagan's adaptation of King's short story The Life of Chuck is set to premiere in theaters in May, and he is also developing a Carrie series for Amazon, based on King's 1974 novel.