Having already successfully helmed adaptations of Stephen King’s Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep, and The Life Of Chuck, with Carrie and The Dark Tower TV series still on their way, Mike Flanagan could’ve been forgiven for deciding to bail on further fresh takes on the Master of Horror’s corpus. But a chance to deliver a new version of one of King’s greatest novellas, adapted once before by the great Frank Darabont? Well, that really would be The Mist opportunity of a lifetime. And so it is that Deadline is reporting Flanagan is tackling a new The Mist movie for Warner Bros.
Set to be written and directed by Flanagan, whose current non-King related projects include DC Studios’ upcoming Clayface movie and the as-yet-untitled latest instalment in The Exorcist franchise, The Mist has previously made its way to screens via the aforementioned 2007 Darabont movie (hailed by Empire‘s own Alex Godfrey as one of the 21st century’s unsung greatest movies) and as a somewhat less critically acclaimed ten-episode limited series a decade later. We don’t yet know exactly what Flanagan’s take on the material will be, but its story — of a group of townsfolk holed up in a grocery store, losing/desperately holding onto their humanity as an impenetrable fog hiding tentacled monsters surrounds them — is a perfect match for Flanagan’s artistic sensibilities. (The Mist is heavy on religious symbolism, trauma, and philosophical enquiries into what defines our humanity — it’s a Flanagan-fit special!)
We’ve no word yet on who’ll be heading into (or, technically, trying to stay out of) The Mist just yet, or when exactly we can expect it to hit our screens either. But with several ace Stephen King adaptations under his belt already and now several more well on their way, suffice it to say that Flanagan’s place alongside Rob Reiner and Frank Darabont on the Mount Rushmore of King moviemakers is pretty firmly locked in at this point. Watch this space for more on The Mist in the weeks and months ahead…
