2017's The Dark Tower had the potential to be a great movie and was supposed to be the beginning of a new franchise that would tell stories in theaters and on television. Unfortunately, it was a total mess that not even stars Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey could save.
As a result, the property - which is based on a phenomenal series of novels by Stephen King - has fallen by the wayside and interest from Hollywood has waned.
Despite that, filmmaker Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House, Doctor Sleep) remains attached to a streaming series he still hopes will become a reality.
"[My creative partner Trevor Macy and I] have The Dark Tower," the director tells Script Apart. "We carved it out from our Netflix deal, knowing we were leaving, and we carved it out from our Amazon deal as well, knowing that they'd already tried to do [a Dark Tower adaptation] and might be reluctant to do it."
"So, The Dark Tower doesn't have a studio. We don't have a partner on it yet, so I'm developing it myself, which is really a blast."
"And that's my dream project, you know?" Flanagan continued. "I've wanted to do that for so long. If we can get it off the ground, if we can actually get it going, I'm not ruling out Amazon's involvement down the line. Our relationship with them is brand new, so we'll have to see. But, yeah, I work on The Dark Tower in one capacity or another every day."
Flanagan acquired the rights to King's epic sci-fi fantasy tale last December, so it's clearly still early days.
He has, however, previously revealed that the first episode's script is done and he anticipates his adaptation running for five seasons. Hopefully, that means we're getting a faithful take on the author's novels that tells this complex, compelling story the right way.
Stay tuned for updates on The Dark Tower.