Mike Flanagan is taking horror fans back to high school with his eagerly anticipated adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie. The TV series has landed on Amazon Prime Video for you to binge right now and relive the visceral coming-of-age tale first penned by the Master of Horror in 1974.Â
Starring Summer H. Howell as the titular Carrie White, the series follows the teenager, ostracised by her peers and kept sheltered by her religious fanatic mother (played by Samantha Sloyan), as she develops kinetic powers following her first period. So, what’s new in the series? Well, Flanagan has said he made the show more “relevant” to a modern audience, tying in elements of social media and the current technological landscape with Carrie’s story.Â
And once you’ve watched through all eight episodes (and you should, with critics widely praising the show and it currently sitting at an 86% rating on Rotten Tomatoes), there’s still plenty to look forward to in the wider Flanaverse. The Doctor Sleep director has several projects in the works, giving you plenty of watchlist material for the foreseeable future. After Carrie, these are the Flanagan projects you should keep on your radar.
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CLAYFACE — October 23, 2026
Tom Rhys Harries in CLAYFACE. (Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures) The next Flanagan film coming to our screens is Clayface, the third movie in the DC Universe based on the comics of the same name. Directed by James Watkins, Clayface follows Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries), a rising Hollywood star whose career and life are left in tatters following a violent attack that leaves his face disfigured. He seeks out cutting-edge treatment from scientist Dr Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie) that, initially, restores his looks, but triggers horrific side effects that make his face clay-like. As his form melds and destabilizes, he slowly loses his grip on reality and spirals into a quest for revenge.
Flanagan pitched the adaptation to DC Studios in 2023, with it being greenlit the following year, and Flanagan signed on as writer-director. Scheduling conflicts forced him to step away from the project, with James Watkins now sitting in the director’s chair with a new script by Hossein Amini. Flanagan is still attached as a writer on the project, though he has stressed that the story is “very much not his.”
He told Comic Book Movie: “It’s James Watkins’ movie. I wrote a script I loved, and I turned it in, and then that’s the last… I haven’t even seen it. I’m excited to see it and see what James did with it. But that’s James’ film, and I’m so excited to see what he made.”Â
THE EXORCIST: MARTYRS — March 27, 2027
Scarlett Johansson in THE EXORCIST: MARTYRS. (Credit: Universal Pictures) After the critical and box-office disappointment of David Gordon Green’s The Exorcist: Believer, Universal and Blumhouse canceled their planned reboot trilogy. Now, Flanagan is set to take the films in a new direction with The Exorcist: Martyrs.
A teaser trailer has finally given us a glimpse of what we can expect from the fifth Exorcist film, with Scarlett Johansson starring as a detective alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor as a priest. The cast also includes Noah Jupe, Diane Lane, John Leguizamo, and Hamish Linklater. Taking on a property like The Exorcist is no small task, but Flanagan said in 2024 that he saw it as a chance to make “the scariest movie” of his career. “We aren’t making this easy on ourselves,” Flanagan told The Hollywood Reporter.
“But I’ve always felt that there’s no point in going into a franchise or into a property that monolithic unless there’s something new you can bring. I chased The Exorcist very aggressively because I was convinced I had something that I could add. This is an opportunity to do something that I believe has never been done within the franchise – something that honors what came before it but isn’t built on nostalgia. I really just saw an opportunity to make the scariest movie I’ve ever made. I know expectations are high. No one’s more intimidated than I am.”
THE DARK TOWER — In Development
THE DARK TOWER. (Credit: Scribner) Carrie isn’t the only Stephen King adaptation Flanagan has in the works; he announced in 2022 that he would bring the author’s epic The Dark Tower novels to TV. The Dark Tower, which spans eight books, tells the story of Roland Deschain, the last gunslinger, on a quest to reach the mysterious Dark Tower. Along the way, he meets several companions who help him face supernatural and earthly threats across different times and worlds.
Flanagan acquired the rights through Intrepid Pictures back in 2022, though updates on the project have been few and far between. Deadline reported that Flanagan envisioned the show running for five seasons, followed by two stand-alone features. Whether or not King is on board for the full journey remains to be seen. Work is ticking along on the film, however, with Flanagan updating fans:
“I think the trick with The Dark Tower is just it's still just takes an enormous amount of time to get going. But we're further along than the last time we spoke. It seems to be moving on its own momentum. There's so much logistical, boring, legal stuff that we have to kind of machete our way through to get that thing moving. But yeah, it has not at all stalled, and none of the other work that's kind of emerged has in any way taken away from it.”
WARHAMMER 40,000 — In Development
SECRET LEVEL. (Credit: Prime Video) Beyond horror and Stephen King titles (more on that later), Flanagan is also turning his attention to Warhammer as one of the writers on Prime Video’s upcoming Warhammer 40,000 series. The show is set to adapt the beloved 1987 Games Workshop tabletop war game into a live-action series, with Henry Cavill signed on as an executive producer and a star in the show.
Though the project is still in its development stages, Flanagan confirmed earlier this year that he has finished the outlines of the story and has begun working on scripts. He also told Entertainment Weekly that Warhammer 40,000 will be “just a mountain” of a show.
THE MIST — In Development
A monster in THE MIST. (Credit: Dimension Films) We promised more on Stephen King adaptations, and Flanagan is making it a hat trick as he turns his attention to the author’s 1980 novel The Mist. The book was previously brought to the big screen by Frank Darabont in 2007, with King famously praising the film’s far bleaker ending that shifts away from his more open-ended, hopeful conclusion. The Mist follows a group of townspeople trapped in a grocery store by an unnatural, creature-filled fog caused by a military experiment.
Deadline reported in February that Flanagan will direct and write the screenplay in collaboration with Warner Bros. Pictures. Flanagan will produce The Mist through Red Room alongside Tyler Thompson and Spyglass’ Gary Barber and Chris Stone. Alexandra Magistro will also executive produce for Red Room.
ROT — In Development
Matthew Lillard in CARRIE. (Credit: Prime Video) Last on Flanagan’s list (for now) is the mysterious project Rot, which we already can’t wait to learn more about. All we know so far is that it is a psychological thriller meets body horror, described as “Repulsion by way of Cronenberg,” as per scriptwriter Geo Bradley.
What’s more, it has Matthew Lillard, Amber Midthunder, and Cooper Koch attached to star. Deadline reported that the film is about an antisocial man suffering from obsessive compulsions who is haunted by the death of his hoarder mother. The man takes on work as a trauma cleaner in hopes of facing his past, but the job soon begins to infest and unravel his mental state.
Alexandra Magistro is directing, while Flanagan is attached as an executive producer under his Red Room banner. He is joined by Molly C. Quinn, Matthew M. Welty, and Elan Gale of QWGmire.
