Few Hollywood directors have had more fruitful collaborations with novelists than Mike Flanagan has had with Stephen King. Flanagan is currently promoting The Life of Chuck, which is adapted from a King short story, and he previously adapted Doctor Sleep, King’s sequel to The Shining, and Gerald’s Game. Now, Collider is reporting that Flanagan is set to adapt another King novel into a series.
Flanagan is apparently set to adapt Carrie into an eight-episode series for Amazon Prime Video. The series will be the first in Flanagan’s new overall deal with the studio.
The novel, which was released in 1974, was one of King’s earliest works to be met with great success and was adapted just two years later into an enduring film directed by Brian de Palma. The story follows Carrie White, an outcast from an extremely strict, religious household who discovers that she has telekinetic powers and eventually decides to take revenge on the town she grew up in. In addition to the 1976 adaptation, which starred Sissy Spacek, the novel has also previously been adapted in 2002 and 2013.
Because this is a series and not another film adaptation, Flanagan is going to have more room to explore the details of the original novel. According to the show’s official logline, this new series is “bold and timely reimagining” of Carrie’s life under tyrannical mother in the aftermath of her father’s death. The summary adds that Carrie “finds herself contending with the alien landscape of public High School, a bullying scandal that shatters her community, and the emergence of mysterious telekinetic powers.”
