Mike Flanagan isn’t remaking The Mist, he’s starting over.
Speaking with Collider at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 17, the director confirmed he is actively writing a new adaptation of Stephen King‘s 1980 novella for Warner Bros., which quietly set the project up back in February. “I’m writing it right now,” he said. “I was working on it on the airplane here.” He’s aiming to turn in a finished script around Halloween.
Flanagan has been careful from the start to draw a line between his version and Frank Darabont‘s 2007 film, still one of horror’s most quietly brutal studio releases with an ending that remains a legend of audience trauma. In a run of posts on BlueSky, Flanagan wrote: “I love Darabont’s film, and there’s zero point in remaking it. Which is why I’m going in a different direction,” adding that “the differences start page 1.”
“I love Darabont’s film, and there’s zero point in remaking it.”
King’s novella, first published in the 1980 anthology Dark Forces, has always carried more story than one film could hold; Darabont’s script diverged sharply from the book’s ending, and the premise, a small-town supermarket, a wall of fog, and whatever lives inside it, proved elastic enough to also support a short-lived 2017 Spike TV series. Flanagan’s own relationship to King’s work keeps deepening: Doctor Sleep, Gerald’s Game, and his currently airing Prime Video series Carrie all share his instinct for finding the grief inside the scare rather than just staging it.
No casting has been announced, and Warner Bros. has not given the project a greenlight beyond the script commission; this is a screenplay in progress, not a locked production. Flanagan has reportedly been attached to direct since the project was first set up in February, though today’s confirmation covers only the writing. Still, a King property moving from “in development” to “being actively written, with a deadline” counts as real news. Stay tuned for more.
