Mike Flanagan's New 8-Part Stephen King Series Can Continue A 50-Year Adaptation Trend

Published Aug 25, 2026, 5:00 PM EDT Zach Moser has been writing for ScreenRant since 2022, covering movies, classic TV, and streaming TV. His areas of expertise cover a wide range of genres with a particular interest in horror and drama, and the conversations around the TV and film industry. When he's not covering the latest film releases or chronicling the latest season of a new show, he's writing humor pieces for McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Slackjaw, and Points In Case or working on short stories and his second novel. Mike Flanagan's new horror adaptation of a Stephen King novel could continue a 50-year trend for the master of horror. While we talk of Superhero fatigue, the zombie-show era, and the "elevated horror" boom, what we don't talk about is the Stephen King half-century. Maybe adaptations of King's works have been around so long that you can't even consider this an era. He's just part of the fabric of television and movies. Since 1976, when Brian de Palma turned King's 1974 novel Carrie into an Academy Award-nominated film, rarely has a year gone by without an adaptation of one of his 67 and counting novels or over 200 short stories for television or film. Another horror icon, Mike Flanagan, is jumping into the King universe for the fourth time, and the first time on television, with his 2026 miniseries, Carrie, which arrives on Prime Video on October 7, 2026. With eight episodes, Flanagan will be expanding one of King's shorter novels, rather than compressing it, as so many film adaptations have had to do. Flanagan is as sure a hand as you can find for a King story, with his takes on Gerald's Game, Doctor Sleep, and The Life of Chuck as some of the better recent adaptations of King's work. If Carrie earns the same acclaim as Flanagan's other shows, it'll continue a quiet trend for Stephen King adaptations. Not every King adaptation is made equal. In fact, there's a massive gulf between the best and the worst. What's surprising is that the better adaptations, like De Palma's Carrie and Flanagan's The Life of Chuck, are often adaptations of the less scary novels in King's bibliography. The Best Stephen King Adaptations Are Of His Least Scary Books It turns out, the master of horror's greatest adaptations are the stories that are the least horrifying. The Shawshank Redemption, Stand by Me, The Green Mile, Dolores Claiborne, The Life of Chuck, and 11.22.63 are generally ranked among the best shows and movies adapted from his work, and you would be hard-pressed to describe any of them as anything more titillating than a "thriller". They're certainly not horror. Even when it comes to Carrie, Misery, Doctor Sleep, and The Outsider, other excellent movies and TV shows in the canon, these are adapted from stories that are more sci-fi or psychological thriller than straight horror. Not to say there aren't great adaptations of his truly frightening stories, but when it comes down to it, The Shining is about the only one that stands up against these other TV shows and films. The batting average is much lower when it comes to King's scary books. His short stories have made for some wonderfully unique and skin-tingling reading, but some awful adaptations. Novels like Salem's Lot and It are some of his best and spookiest, but have resulted in movies and TV shows that are, at best, serviceable. Stephen King's Characters Are As Well Written As His Monsters If you've read Stephen King, it's hard to miss just how weird his stories can be. It's one of the most interesting aspects of his horror. He's closer to Lovecraft in that way than someone like Bram Stoker. Even his "conventional" horror stories, like Salem's Lot, have a cosmic horror aspect that can be difficult to render correctly and frighteningly on screen. What can be rendered effectively on screen are King's characters. Along with being a master of horror, King is also a master of character. The people who populate his stories are as mesmerizing as any vampire or ghost. The best King adaptations, the Carries and the Shawshank Redemptions, are based on stories with some of King's best character work. Carrie White, Andy Dufresne, and Jake Epping are characters you can understand and see. Putting them on screen successfully is just a matter of trusting the source material. Release Date 2026 - 2026-00-00 Network Prime Video Showrunner Mike Flanagan Cast Summer H. Howell Carrie White Matthew Lillard Principal Grayle Samantha Sloyan Margaret White