Given his track record, Flanagan seems like the ideal choice to helm a new adaptation of King’s 1980 novella “The Mist” for the big screen. However, when Warner Bros. announced his involvement in the project in February, I felt a twinge of disappointment. Instead of embarking on this side project, Flanagan should be fully immersed in his most ambitious endeavor yet: the adaptation of King’s “The Dark Tower” series for Prime Video.

Flanagan is undoubtedly aware of the enormity of this challenge. In 2022, alongside his Intrepid Pictures collaborator Trevor Macy, he unveiled plans for a sweeping adaptation of “The Dark Tower” that encompasses five seasons and potentially two films. This is a monumental task for any creator, particularly when dealing with a narrative as intricate as King’s epic saga. While Flanagan’s expertise is undeniable, he may have overextended himself by adding “The Mist” to his already overflowing plate.

King’s “The Mist” is a compelling tale, centered on a Maine town shrouded in a mysterious fog teeming with supernatural creatures. It’s a narrative ripe for exploring the depths of human behavior under duress, making it an ideal candidate for film or television adaptation. This explains its previous adaptations.

Moreover, “The Mist” has already been revisited, with Christian Thorpe’s 2017 television series on Spike, which unfortunately did not capture the same magic as Darabont’s film. Given that a standout adaptation already exists, one must question the necessity of revisiting this lesser-known King story every decade.

The story’s 2007 movie adaptation by Mike Flanagan’s aforementioned fellow serial King adapter Frank Darabont is as entertaining as it is soul-crushing. The relentlessly bleak ending of “The Mist,” in particular, is a moment that lives with you for far longer than is healthy; it’s been years since I last saw the film, but whenever I see fog, I still think of it. Not the monsters, mind you. I think of David Drayton’s (Thomas Jane) anguish as the mist clears and help arrives just after he’s mercy-killed his own son (Nathan Gamble) and other survivors. This perfect moment of blood-curdling, unfair terror differs from the original story in the best possible way. It’s the kind of cinematic moment that couldn’t and shouldn’t be replicated or altered. It also cements Darabont’s “The Mist” as a movie that you don’t watch and think, “Hey, someone should turn this into a better version.” It already is the better version.

Besides, “The Mist” actually has already been remade once, courtesy of Spike. Christian Thorpe’s 2017 TV show take on the story is frankly quite a bit worse than the Darabont adaptation, which kind of is the problem here. Since a great film version of “The Mist” already exists, is it really necessary to remake this comparatively obscure King story once per decade?

I’m not dunking on Mike Flanagan for wanting to mix things up. As George R.R. Martin and the endless side quests that keep sidelining his eternally unfinished “The Winds of Winter” have proven time and time again, big projects are challenging. A creator has to reboot their brain on occasion so they don’t get too lost in the vastness of it all. The problem with that, however, is that such escapes are a privilege, not a right.

There are projects that simply don’t allow for lapses of concentration. Peter Jackson used six years of his life in the immersive process of creating “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. While Flanagan can probably get away without extensive shoots in New Zealand and suchlike, an argument could be made that “The Dark Tower” series is still roughly on the same level of complexity. In fact, Flanagan himself knows the magnitude of the project very well. He has said that adapting “The Dark Tower” is his dream project, to the point that he and Trevor Macy actually secured the IP for themselves. “Predating our deal with Amazon, we acquired the rights to ‘The Dark Tower,’ which if you know anything about me, you know it has been my Holy Grail of a project for most of my life,” Flanagan told Deadline in 2022.

A Holy Grail. That shows a lot of dedication, and an obvious awareness of the project’s highly challenging nature. This is why I find it so odd that Flanagan dabbles with other Stephen King works on the side, instead of focusing on getting “The Dark Tower” done. 

Since it looks like Mike Flanagan does indeed intend to overextend himself, I’ll look at an infamous tale about what happens when you don’t pay adequate attention to this particular source material. This, of course, is Nikolaj Arcel’s utterly cursed 2017 “The Dark Tower” film (Rotten Tomatoes rating: 16%). Before I dove in, I already knew that the movie couldn’t possibly adapt eight novels and change into its hour-and-a-half runtime. As such, it was no surprise for me to see that it largely focused on the first book with some tacked-on elements from the rest of the series. What was surprising, however, was how beige and vague everything was. Walking away, I felt like I’d watched a half-hearted bullet point presentation by someone who had skimmed through the story’s synopsis online. 

A great cast (Idris Elba! Matthew McConaughey! Katheryn Winnick! Jackie Earle Haley!) does little to distract from the fact that 2017’s “The Dark Tower” is a deeply underwhelming thing. It captures little of the source material’s magic, and remains a good example of what half measures will get you when a project is this demanding. 

The thing is, Flanagan already knows this. As a Stephen King aficionado, he’s acutely aware of the 2017 film and rates it about as highly as you’d expect. “We can’t let that be the final word. We really can’t,” he said in a January 2026 interview with Empire Magazine (via Deadline). Against this backdrop, the decision to potentially divert his own attention from “The Dark Tower” by adding “The Mist” in his schedule seems even stranger.

Now that I’ve expressed my concern about Mike Flanagan’s “The Mist” side quest, let me give him the benefit of doubt and play the devil’s advocate. First, let’s assume that Flanagan is not only keenly aware of the challenge of adding more Stephen King projects in the pipeline, but that he’s actually planning to turn it into an advantage. What if “The Mist” and Prime Video’s “Carrie” miniseries – which, incidentally, he’s also committed to — are actually a part of Flanagan’s “The Dark Tower” project? What if he’s building a grander interconnected King universe, one that’s even more pointed than what Andy Muschietti and company are doing with “It: Welcome to Derry” and its copious King Easter eggs?

Another possibility is that Flanagan could simply be far further along “The Dark Tower” path than we know, to the point that he feels confident he has enough time to tackle a big-screen project. There’s actually some indication that this might be the case. “It’s moving,” Flanagan said about “The Dark Tower” series in the Empire Magazine interview. “We’ve got a lot of scripts done for it. It’s the first priority.”

Whatever’s going with Flanagan’s “The Dark Tower” clearly has him feeling secure enough to tackle not one but two separate King adaptations on the side, while still stating that the giant project is his number one thing. While I have my concerns about his decision to do “The Mist” project, maybe he’s earned enough goodwill to at least hope for the best.