Mike Flanagan talks Oculus sequel, status of Stephen King’s Gerald’s Game

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Mike Flanagan is certainly a director on the rise. His OCULUS scared up some pretty good reviews and did well at the box office earlier this year, prompting many to speculate that we'd likely see a sequel heading our way eventually, but first Flanagan plans on tackling an adaptation of Stephen King's GERALD'S GAME. We first reported on Flanagan's involvement with GERALD'S GAME back in April just as OCULUS was hitting theaters, and now Fangoria has gotten some updates on where GERALD'S GAME stands right now and Flanagan's desire to revisit the horrors of the Lasser Glass.

Flanagan shares…

As far as another OCULUS movie, it’s something that we’ve talked about. The movie performed well enough for the studio that they’d be really game for a sequel, but I would only want to do it if I found a story that’s as exciting as I found the first one. The last thing I’d want to do is get in the business of franchising the movie and crank out sequels to an idea even if it’s worn out. So there’s been talk about it, but for the moment, I want to focus on GERALD’S GAME first. If the right story presents itself, however, I’d love to go back and spend another year with that mirror.

I can appreciate that he's hesitant to move forward with a sequel without a strong story. We've seen what happens when an idea is run into the ground with numerous (and quickly produced) sequels. Yeah, I'm looking at you, SAW and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY.

I'm more excited about Flanagan's adaptation of Stephen King's GERALD'S GAME, which Flanagan seems very enthusiastic about. He shares…

I’ve been wanting to make GERALD’S GAME for ten years. I love that novel and I first started trying to acquire the rights around that time. After OCULUS came out, King had seen the movie and really liked it, so things finally fell into place for GERALD’S GAME. I’m so excited about that, but talk about a difficult movie! If you want to talk about the strange structure of OCULUS, GERALD’S GAME is really out there.

GERALD’S GAME is intimate and contained on a level that’s really exciting from a creative point of view. It’ll be a really strange and exciting movie for an audience, and there’s nothing quite like it. For the longest time, I’d look at that book and be convinced it was unfilmable, but I finished the script late last year and at the moment, I’m convinced it is filmable. It’s a strange one, but we’re casting that right now and hopefully we’ll be going into production on that in late winter or early spring of next year.

I enjoyed King's novel and can't wait to see what Flanagan does with it. We'll keep you posted on news regarding the casting and production status as we hear it.