Well, an updated Carrie take was not on the bingo card for followers of Mike Flanagan adapting Stephen King works. In fact, this intersection of horror fanbases wasn’t entirely thrilled about those The Exorcist reboot plans interrupting their hopes that a long-gestating The Dark Tower series would launch Flanagan’s Prime Video/Amazon deal after he departed Netflix.
Did that proclamation happen? Not yet. Flanagan himself is surely holding out hope that he will eventually do more with his previewed vision for The Gunslinger‘s opening moments to kick off a lengthy The Dark Tower series. For now, however, audiences can look forward to another Carrie. Really? Believe it. Let’s review how this happened and what to expect.
Plot
Everybody who has dabbled in Stephen King books and adaptations is aware of Brian De Palma’s 1970s adaptation starring Sissy Spacek. Pig’s blood and foreshadowing with tampons certainly are visuals that stick in moviegoers’ minds, along with Carrie’s telekinesis-powered, homecoming-queen revenge upon those who ceaselessly bullied her. Multiple attempts have been made to repackage this terror-filled classic, and those efforts included a TV movie in the aughts, an incredibly short-lived musical run (perhaps the “worst” musical in history) that lost millions, and a forgettable 2013 film starring Chloe Moretz.
Carrie has arguably been done “to death,” so how, exactly, did an eight-episode series version (as initially revealed by Deadline) of the story become Mike Flanagan’s introductory Amazon MGM Studios project? While speaking with Movieweb (via Screenrant), Flanagan revealed how Amazon actually reached out because they were interested in a retooling (“they said, ‘Hey, would you have any interest in Carrie?'”). Flanagan didn’t immediately see the value in this project either, but he warmed up to the idea:
“I had to think about it, because my first instinct is always — why? It’s been done perfectly by De Palma, it’s then been done three other times after the fact. Why do it again? Carrie White is a story about high school violence and bullying, and that feels immediate and important today, unfortunately, even more kind of sharply relevant than I think it was when he wrote it.”
Did he say “more relevant”? Flanagan sees tech as key to this remake. Hmm:
“So there felt like a chance for some true modernization beyond just changing the time period, and to use it to talk about the issues that affect high school kids in America today. You know, Carrie White walking through a metal detector is interesting to me. Carrie White with social media. The iconic scene in the locker room is very different when people have phones in their hands. So that was the first germ of an idea, like, there is room for this to actually have a lot to say that’s very relevant.”
This doesn’t immediately sound like groundbreaking material — many horror films have attempted commentary on compounding technology for better and worse — but if anybody can pull this off and make Carrie work, 50 years after the fact, it’s Mike Flanagan. It’s also worth noting that this news came five years after FX announced a Carrie limited series that never surfaced, so it’s likely that somebody would make a TV show at some point no matter what. And the world does not need another bad King adaptation, so Flanagan should be the go-to guy because horror audiences trust him more than anybody with King’s material. (Although c’mon, there are dozens of other untouched King stories that could be made instead.)
Flanagan also chatted with CinemaBlend to reiterate that he found it essential to answer the “Why?” for himself before signing onto a reboot:
“One of the only questions I had when it was first put on the table was ‘Why?’, and if I couldn’t answer ‘Why do this again?’ for myself, then there was no point in pursuing the project. It’d the same muscle. I will say that it’s the same feeling I had when we approached The Turn of the Screw, which had been adapted dozens of times. And it’s like, ‘Okay, how do we do this completely differently?'”
Prime Video/Amazon hasn’t released an update synopsis yet, but King’s Constant (and Not-So Constant) Readers know the drill on this tale.
Trailer
Obviously, we will not see a trailer for awhile, but looking back at how Flanagan handled Prospero’s death scene in The Fall Of The House of Usher, he’s got hellish dance parties in his back pocket for miles.
Cast
No confirmed cast members have been named yet, but a Sissy Spacek cameo feels like an essential tribute to the Brian De Palma film. We can also expect Flanagan to recruit some of his usual suspects, including Carla Gugino, Annabeth Gish, Rahul Kohli, Mark Hamill, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Victoria Pedretti, Henry Thomas, and Kate Siegel.
Could he perhaps include freaky Midnight Mass vampire-priest Hamish Linklater as Principal Morton? Why not.
Release Date
Once Flanagan begins production on a project, he works fast, as his Netflix TV series run (which arrived on an efficient annual clip) proved. As a result, this series could go into overdrive next year with a 2026 arrival.
