Mike Flanagan wants to make The Dark Tower and a prequel to The Shining

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Warner Bros. was so enthusiastic about director Mike Flanagan's Stephen King adaptation / THE SHINING sequel DOCTOR SLEEP (watch it HERE) that – before the film was released – they made a deal with Flanagan to develop a prequel called HALLORANN, which would dive into the story of Dick Hallorann, the character who was a mentor to little Danny Torrance. Sadly, DOCTOR SLEEP underperformed at the box office, so by the time we heard about HALLORANN it was already looking unlikely that the movie would happen.

During the recent digital edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival, Flanagan confirmed that he had written a thorough outline for HALLORANN and pieces of a script, but the project is on hold indefinitely. 

I don’t know if it’ll go any further, to be honest. I hope someday it gets back on track, because I really liked it. There’s this huge chunk of [Hallorran’s] life where King just never provided anything, and that’s where we want to play. The fun part about that is I’ve got signposts on either side of that story. I know where he begins and I knows where he ends. It’s all about getting him from that little boy at the beginning of DOCTOR SLEEP, who’s talking about his evil grandfather and learning about the shining and the lockboxes and getting him to be that man who takes the job at the Overlook Hotel. And who clearly, as referenced all over the books, had some kind of very traumatic experience in Room 237, or 217 in the book. (Working on HALLORANN) would be an incredible job. I don’t know how to approach that. I do know that I would need to touch base with King constantly, to make sure that we’re not messing up his character."

Flanagan also revealed that his "dream project" when it comes to King adaptations would be THE DARK TOWER: 

THE DARK TOWER is forever going to be the story I wish I could tell. That would be the Holy Grail. I mean, talk about an adaptation challenge… So many very talented people have poured so much time and heart and soul and blood, sweat and tears trying to crack that. That for me would be the one. I don’t know how that would happen, or if it could happen. That property, it’s daunting. Just to think about even taking first steps toward it."

There have been two failed attempts to bring THE DARK TOWER to life in the last few years. There was the 2017 feature (watch it HERE), which did its own thing instead of trying to tell a story from the books and wasn't well received, and an Amazon series that was meant to be a faithful adaptation of King's stories, but the streaming service decided not to go through with it after seeing the pilot.