Mike Flanagan reunites with Stephen King once again for The Mist adaptation
Following in the path of other beloved horror filmmaking duos, author Stephen King and director Mike Flanagan are set to collaborate for a fifth time for the third adaptation of King’s 1980 skin-crawling novella, The Mist, Deadline have confirmed.
First published as part of King’s short story collection titled Skeleton Crew, The Mist centres on a small town in King’s favourite state to write about, Maine, which becomes plagued by a thick, blinding, mysterious plague. Bloodshed follows upon realisation that the mist is concealing otherworldly, Lovecraftian creatures mimicking this world’s insects, but to an extreme, terrifying scale. As the octopus/spider/lobster monsters tear the townsfolk limb from limb, a small group of survivors banding together in a store and working tirelessly to keep the creatures out, slowly discover that maybe the true monster is already in there with them.
The Mist was first adapted for the big screen in 2007 by director Frank Darabont, another King collaborator who brought his novels, The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption, to life in two stellar films. It featured an ensemble cast of Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden, Andre Braugher and Toby Jones and was well received by critics and at the box office. The film also earned King’s approval with one of the most devastating horror film endings, one so powerful that the author wished it were the novel’s original.
A second adaptation followed in 2017, this time for television and developed by Christian Thrope. Morgan Spector, Alyssa Sutherland, Gus Birney, Danica Curcic, Okezie Morro, Luke Cosgrove, Darren Pettie, Russell Posner and Frances Conroy all appeared in the cast.
Now it’s Flanagan’s turn to direct one of King’s more goriest novels in his fifth time working on a King novel. This will follow Gerald’s game in 2017 (based on King’s 1992 novel), 2019’s Doctor Sleep (based on the 2013 book and a sequel to King’s 1977 novel The Shining, which was famously adapted in 1980 by Stanley Kubrick) and 2024’s The Life of Chuck (King’s 2020 novella). Flanagan is also working on a TV adaptation of King’s debut 1974 book Carrie, which completed principal photography last year.
Flanagan will also be writing the script, with production shared between Red Room (Tyler Thompson) and Spy Glass (Gary Barber and Chris Stone).
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