Mike Flanagan is busy on Prime Video’s Carrie show, but he’s already got another project lined up in The Mist. Also based on a previously adapted Stephen King story, the horror filmmaker had time at San Diego Comic-Con to talk about his aims with that future movie.
Speaking to both Carrie and Mist, Flanagan acknowledged to Entertainment Weekly those two were done “spectacularly” in the past, which makes them different from other King adaptations he’s been invovled in, like Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep. Instead of just telling the book’s story in cinematic form, here he’ll have to “find something new to build.” Comparing his plans to what Frank Darabont’s 2007 film, Flanagan teased his take on The Mist is a “very different way into, through, and out of that story. What are we gonna do that justifies itself? It’s a different type of adaptation for me.”
While The Mist has been adapted several times in television, radio, and even video game form, Darabont’s version may be the most well-known. It took many liberties with the source material, including changing up the ending from the novella, with David Drayton…well, if you know, you know. King loved that new ending, and Flanagan similarly called it a “jaw-dropping” closer to “one of the most brutal movies I’ve ever seen.”
So to Flanagan, there’s some pressure to make sure his take on The Mist can stand alongside the version King’s already a fan of. We’ll have to wait to see what that new version entails and who he brings on to help bring it to life. Until then, there’s Carrie, which hits Prime Video on October 7.
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