Creator Mike Flanagan On Differences From Previous Versions

Mike Flanagan has a string of Stephen King movies under his belt. He helmed “Gerald’s Game,” “Doctor Sleep,” and “The Life of Chuck,” all based on King’s work, and he’s got an adaptation of “The Dark Tower” somewhere on the horizon. Now, he’s taking yet another crack at the horror master, this time via a streaming series. And this isn’t just any Stephen King book — it’s the first Stephen King book, “Carrie.”

“Carrie” is King’s debut novel that set him on a path to becoming the icon we know today, and it’s been adapted to the screen multiple times already, most notably in a 1976 film directed by Brian De Palma and starring Sissy Spacek. Is there anything left to even say with this story? The answer, at least as far as Flanagan is concerned, is “yes,” as the writer-director and his team have taken the bones of King’s book and reworked it into something considerably different.

I had a chance to speak with Flanagan about the new “Carrie” series (read our review here), and delve into what makes this version so distinct (without giving away spoilers).

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

So, at this point, you’ve done numerous Stephen King adaptations. I feel like Mick Garris is the only other filmmaker who’s done more than you.

Yeah. He’s done more than twice as many as me, I think … it’s impossible to catch him.

I’m wondering, in your own words, what makes a good Stephen King adaptation? Because there are so many Stephen King adaptations, and I feel like you really nailed it.

I think it’s remembering that in his heart of hearts, Stephen King is an optimistic humanist, and that that is his priority over the horror. The horror is all there. It’s there for you to dive into. But if you can hold on to that fundamental optimism, that, to me, defines Steve’s work. There’s a beautiful love of human beings underneath everything. Even the darker, most vile, nihilistic stuff that he writes, it’s always in there somewhere, and that’s what I always try to hold onto.

Obviously, “Carrie” has been adapted a few times now. I don’t want to get into spoilers, of course, but could you say what makes this version of “Carrie” different?

I think (it’s) three different things. One is when it takes place. The other is who the characters are, and then the third thing is the universe around them. (…) Stephen King, half a century ago, could never have ever imagined the impact of the new tools of cruelty that we deploy on each other and how normalized they’ve become with social media, with the internet, with how our discourse has accepted this degree of bullying and cruelty as unavoidable. He never could have imagined kids walking through a metal detector and facing the specter of school shooters on the daily as a normal part of life, not an aberration. He never could have pictured that, I think, and so that — really kind of bringing it into 2026 and today’s teenage experience — I think, is one thing that’s quite different.

The other is that the characters themselves are, in a lot of ways, the exact opposite of the “Carrie” characters we’ve come to expect. Carrie White has always been this terrified, trembling, traumatized, poor young adult in every version we’ve ever seen of her. In ours, she’s the opposite. She’s open and eager and curious and kind and just ready to be part of the world. Margaret White has always been an abuser, defined by the fear and hatred she has for her daughter. In ours, she fiercely loves Carrie and just doesn’t know how to protect her.

Mike Flanagan continues:

Then, the last thing is the world. Stephen King, in the book, hints at the fact that Carrie is part of a long line of gifted women that go all the way back through history, but she never lives long enough to realize she isn’t alone. In our version, we had the real estate, for the very first time, to look at that expanded world of other gifted women and see how they might come to bear on this story and on Carrie herself.

I get to do two types of adaptation in my career: the kind where you try to protect the book on the way to screen, with changing as little as possible, and then there’s the other kind, which is “(The Haunting of) Hill House,” “(The Haunting of) Bly Manor,” “(The Fall of the) House of Usher,” where you take something apart and build something new out of its pieces, and this is the first time I’ve ever gotten to do that with Stephen King. 

It, very much, is a reinvention, and I was not interested in remaking “Carrie” ever, but I was very interested in doing what we ended up getting to do.

Summer H. Howell (who plays Carrie) is so good in this. She’s phenomenal and it’s such a different kind of performance than Sissy Spacek … what were you looking for in your version of Carrie?

We looked at more than 1,400 actresses to find our Carrie. It’s the most exhaustive and difficult casting experience of my career by a mile. What we were looking for was a Carrie we’d never experienced before. We were looking for someone who was curious and earnest and kind and eager and utterly unspoiled by our world and our society, but we wanted her also not to appear to be naive. Her naivety, if she had any, came from the fact that she wasn’t informed, that she wasn’t given context to what was happening around her, but that she had an enormous emotional intelligence, an intuitive kindness, and a hidden reserve of power in who she is.

Summer H. Howell, I think, embodied that in a way that made us simultaneously amazed by the layers of her, but also determined to protect her from the world. That was something that was all Summer. Once she arrived, it defined the show, I think, for us. I think her performance is the show, and like you said, it kind of bears no resemblance to what’s come before.

All eight episodes of “Carrie” begin streaming on Prime Video on October 7, 2026.