Mike Flanagan on Stephen King Adaptations and The Exorcist

When horror fans think of Mike Flanagan, the immediate associations are Netflix and Stephen King. The creator of The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, The Fall of the House of Usher, and other much-loved Netflix limited series has since shifted his streaming home to Prime Video, but his allegiance to King remains solid. His next release, non-horror tale The Life of Chuck, is another adaptation of the author’s work for the big screen. And while he has more in the works in that department, he’s also adding another big horror category to his resume soon: The Exorcist.

With David Gordon Green departing the franchise after the disappointing The Exorcist: Believer—recently, Green spoke about what his scrapped second film might’ve been like—the expectations of Universal and Blumhouse now rest on Flanagan’s take, Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, he had quite the tease to offer.

“I’ve always felt that there’s no point in going into a franchise or into a property that monolithic unless there’s something new you can bring,” he told the trade. “I chased The Exorcist very aggressively because I was convinced I had something that I could add. This is an opportunity to do something that I believe has never been done within the franchise—something that honors what came before it but isn’t built on nostalgia. I really just saw an opportunity to make the scariest movie I’ve ever made. I know expectations are high. No one’s more intimidated than I am.”

The scariest movie he’s ever made? Bold words coming from the guy who injected the Bent-Neck Lady into countless nightmares—though technically speaking, Hill House was a series, not a feature.

The interview goes on to discuss Flanagan’s convivial relationship with King, including the nerve-wracking experience of screening 2019’s The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep for the author, who notoriously disliked the 1980 Stanley Kubrick Shining. It went well, obviously; they’re still pals, and not only does Flanagan have The Life of Chuck coming, he’s also got The Dark Tower books on his to-adapt list, envisioning both feature and series possibilities. (While Flanagan doesn’t specify what his first Amazon project will be, he says “spooky is definitely the priority.”)

But there’s one King story we won’t be getting from Flanagan, which he admits with what sounds like a certain amount of regret: an adaptation of 2014 novel Revival. It’s about a man whose life intersects over the years with a minister turned faith healer whose use of electricity awakens supernatural terrors. Flanagan told THR he wrote a script that was “one of my favorite things I’ve ever written,” but “it fell apart,” adding “That’s gone now because I have The Dark Tower. Stephen doesn’t like to have you sitting on more than one thing at a time. It means something’s not getting made.”

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