Tolkien Meets Stephen King In The 21st Century's Most Ambitious Fantasy Series

Image via MovieStillsDB Published Aug 22, 2026, 6:00 PM EDT Faith Roswell is a Senior Writer on Screen Rant's Classic TV team. Since earning her degree in Creative Writing over a decade ago, Faith has written articles on film and TV from a variety of different angles. Faith now combines her knowledge of psychology with her love of monster movies to give more insight into what makes the best ones. You may have read her Screen Rant lists and features covering horror, sci-fi, and fantasy, or read her Amazon Top 10 book, "Movie Monsters of the Deep." Faith has had an extensive career as a writer, appearing on BBC live radio, researching true crime for Rotten Mango podcast, and writing for publications including Mental Floss, Atlas Obscura, and The Daily Jaws before beginning here at Screen Rant. Sign in to your ScreenRant account J.R.R. Tolkien's expansive Middle Earth novels have become the blueprint for fantasy worldbuilding, but Stephen King's ambitious world is not only the anti-Middle Earth, but it rivals Tolkien in terms of scale. Like Tolkien, Stephen King has mastered his genre, but not all of his books are easy to adapt. The best Stephen King TV shows have stuck closely to the lore in the source material, no matter how ambitious, while the projects that fail have generally deviated so far from the original that they are confusing for new viewers and alienating for existing fans. Fortunately, the worst of these failures is about to be given another chance. Mike Flanagan and Stephen King are a formidable creative team, and Flanagan has demonstrated a gift for turning even King's most "unadaptable" stories into onscreen masterpieces. This began with Gerald's Game, a story largely set within one immobilized woman's mind. Stephen King himself called the result "horrifying, hypnotic, terrific" on X, opening the door for more Mike Flanagan adaptations. Still, most of Mike Flanagan's projects have dealt with smaller parts of Stephen King's macroverse, but The Dark Tower is going to offer more of a challenge. Mike Flanagan's The Dark Tower TV Series Is Incredibly Ambitious The Dark Tower has the tone of a Western, but the epic scale of a Tolkien story. The seven-book series follows Roland Deschain, the last of the Gunslingers, as he embarks on a quest to reach the titular "Dark Tower," which is said to be the center of all universes, bringing about the end of the world if destroyed. This might sound like a relatively simple adventure premise, but Tolkien's influence on King is clear, both explicitly in the preface, and within the complex universe itself. The seven core books in The Dark Tower series Title Year Pages The Gunslinger 1982 224 The Drawing of the Three 1987 400 The Waste Lands 1991 512 Wizard and Glass 1997 787 Wolves of the Calla 2003 336 Song of Susannah 2004 714 The Dark Tower 2004 845 Those familiar with the Lord of the Rings books and the large amount of material cut to simplify the movies will get a sense of the scale of this project, and how ambitious Mike Flanagan's Dark Tower TV series really is. The Dark Tower has its own language and a multiverse, instantly making it a larger project than even Middle Earth, but it grows even more complicated from there. The world is coming apart at the seams, with even time sometimes running backwards and the sun rising and setting in different locations. Keeping track of all of these elements is a task better suited to a TV show than a movie, as was proven in 2017. Despite having Idris Elba in the starring role, The Dark Tower movie adaptation flopped, with critics giving it a 16% positive Rotten Tomatoes rating. Rather than adapt a small part of the story, the movie attempted to fit the entire saga into 95 minutes, removing the significant violence in favor of a PG-13 rating. The result was unrecognizable. However, The Dark Tower's first look has been praised, and Mike Flanagan's track record works in his favor. The Dark Tower Isn't Stephen King's Only Tolkien-esque Story Stephen King might be known as "the King of horror," but his approach to the genre is surprisingly Tolkienesque, with many of his stories featuring unexpected connections. Even seemingly standalone books, like Carrie, are set to expand, with Mike Flanagan's upcoming TV series placing its main character within a wider universe that could connect to later works. That said, aside from The Dark Tower, The Stand is arguably the story that is closest to Tolkien and Middle Earth. Often described as The Lord of the Rings meets The Walking Dead, the saga follows a quest across a post-apocalyptic America. The Stand is connected to The Dark Tower through its villain, Randall Flagg, who is part of one of King's best overarching evils, The Crimson King. With the two stories being set within the same universe, and The Stand's 2020 miniseries also being a failure with audiences giving it a 25% positive Rotten Tomatoes rating, Mike Flanagan will never have a better chance to launch a Stephen King multiverse than now. If The Dark Tower is a success, this could also give The Stand a new start, reflecting the regeneration theme of both books rather poetically. The Dark Tower Created by Stephen King First Film The Dark Tower Upcoming TV Shows The Dark Tower Cast Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Taylor, Dennis Haysbert, Claudia Kim, Fran Kranz, Abbey Lee, Jackie Earle Haley, Katheryn Winnick, Michael Barbieri Movie(s) The Dark Tower Character(s) Roland Deschain, The Man in Black, Jake Chambers, Eddie Dean, Susannah Dean, Oy, The Crimson King, Stephen Deschain, Sayre, Tirana The Dark Tower is a multimedia franchise based on Stephen King's epic series of eight novels. The story follows Roland Deschain, the last of the Gunslingers, as he embarks on a quest to reach the Dark Tower, a mystical structure that stands at the center of all worlds and realities. The series blends elements of dark fantasy, horror, science fiction, and Western genres. Over the years, the franchise has expanded beyond the original books to include a film, comic books, and upcoming TV adaptations, making it one of King's most ambitious and interconnected works.