Mike Flanagan Emotionally Reflects On Scrapped Stephen King Adaptation Only4Media.com

Though his work continues on other adaptations of the author’s bibliography, Mike Flanagan has some emotional thoughts on the Revival adaptation’s cancellation. King’s 2014 novel followed the life stories of Charles Jacobs and Jamie Morton, the former of whom starts the book as a priest who devolves into a man obsessed with experiments involving electrical healing, while the latter begins as a young boy fascinated by his abilities who frequently becomes entangled in Jacobs’ new experiments. Multiple attempts have been made at a Revival movie adaptation, first by New Mutants’ Josh Boone, before Flanagan signed on in early 2020.

During his Echoes From Hill House: A Haunting Panel at FAN EXPO Canada, for which Screen Rant was a media partner, Screen Rant‘s Joe Deckelmeier asked Flanagan about what unmade projects he still looks back on wanting to have made. Flanagan pointed to Revival as the “project that got away“, praising his script as being really “dark” and true to King’s 2014 novel, while also explaining that its shelving came in part due to Doctor Sleep‘s underperformance, though remained hopeful to get the rights back to the book at some point. See what Flanagan shared below:

Absolutely. I wrote a script off of Revival that I love. Man, is it dark. We did the ending and, if you’ve read it, it is one of the bleakest most chilling endings that King’s ever done – including Pet Sematary. It’s dark, but man did I love that script. When people ask me what the phantom limb is, what the project that got away is, it’ll always be Revival. I had written it for Warner Brothers right after we had been shooting Doctor Sleep, but Doctor Sleep didn’t work in the box office. I’m enormously proud of the movie, and I hear from fans that it seems to grow, but it didn’t perform to the studio’s expectations. And so a lot of the projects that we had at Warner Brothers died as a result, and Revival was one of them.

I’ve mourned for it ever since, but I do not have the rights to it. It went away. And Steve, very wisely, doesn’t like to saddle the same filmmaker with more than one thing because it means that something’s not proceeding. There are other Stephen King properties that I am attached to that took precedence over that, and the choice was to pursue those or to try to get Revival going someplace else. We let it go, but I’ll always pine for that movie. Maybe it comes back around. You never know with these things.

Why Now Is The Right Time For Flanagan’s Revival Adaptation

With both prior attempts to make a Revival movie having failed, it may seem like the King novel will never make its way to the screen, though there are a variety of reasons why now would be the perfect time for Flanagan to get a chance to do so. One of the biggest factors is the fact he remains firmly planted in the world of King adaptations, not only with his upcoming Life of Chuck movie, but also in developing a TV adaptation of the Dark Tower novels. Though Doctor Sleep may have underperformed at the box office, both it and Gerald’s Game garnered rave reviews.

Another reason why Flanagan could get another shot at making Revival is the recent resurgence in Lovecraftian horror on both the big and small screens. Horror streaming service, Shudder, has particularly made a home for multiple titles directly adapting the late author’s works, including the Heather Graham-led Suitable Flesh and Nicolas Cage-starring Color Out of Space. James Wan is also currently at work developing an adaptation of The Call of Cthulhu, showing an ongoing mainstream interest in the genre.

As noted by Flanagan both above and in prior comments, the biggest hurdle a Revival movie will face is in a studio being willing to back as dark of an ending as King’s book. However, given the adaptation of King’s The Mist remains one of the more iconic in spite of its bleak finale, and other recent horror movies have subverted the happy ending trope, there’s sure to be a studio out there willing to take the risk. Given Flanagan has a busy schedule with other projects, including the next Exorcist movie, he may have to wait for sometime to try again.

Revival

Revival is an electrifying novel about addiction and fanaticism from Stephen King. The story takes place over several decades which makes it realistic but disturbing.

King guides the reader through a strange event that happened more than five decades ago in New England concerning a church minister. After the fallout, the author explores the early life stories of two different but interesting characters. One is the pious man who loses everything he has, and the other is a young boy who suffers a terrible loss in his family.

The story explores how two dissimilar men can be doomed to the same destiny despite their past. Unlike other stories by King, where the reader can easily separate themselves from the characters, you will find yourself identifying with one of the heroes in the story. King forces you to see the world through the eyes of the protagonists, which makes the story more lively and immediate.

The story forces an inner dialogue on what you could have done in certain situations. Interestingly, you might only do this for certain characters but not others, a trick that only King can pull on a reader.

If you have never questioned whether your life rolls out by design or coincidence, prepare to do exactly that! You will start to wonder where the border between reality and the supernatural lies after finishing the story.

Revival is one of the few novels by Stephen King where religion takes center stage in a non-critical but thought-provoking manner. The author presents ethical dilemmas in a way that feels targeted less at the characters and more at you. Consider picking up this brilliant work of literature.