Mike Flanagan says: The Dark Tower series will be remarkably faithful to Stephen King's books.

Mike Flanagan has revealed his approach to the highly anticipated The Dark Tower TV show, which is sure to please fans of the Stephen King book series.

Flanagan, known for Netflix's horror shows The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and most recently Amazon's Carrie, has been trying to get an adaptation of King's much-loved fantasy epic off the ground for years — despite the Season 1 script having King's seal of approval.

Flanagan told Entertainment Weekly over the summer that The Dark Tower is currently "one of the most complicated properties to start with." "Getting the green light at The Dark Tower is a much longer and more involved process than anything I've ever approached in my life."

Essentials: Stephen King's Dark Tower Multiverse

Actually building the dark tower is the hard part. But in terms of the adaptation itself, it is relatively simple. This is because Flanagan has taken the approach of faithfully adapting the books, almost to a fault, and has relied heavily on the story told by King himself.

"I feel like I got it," Flanagan said in a recent interview with The Process Unlocked. "You do the books."

This seems obvious, but it's not the path that previous adaptations of The Dark Tower have followed - much to the disappointment of fans. The 2017 film starred Idris Elba as Roland Deschamps and Matthew McConaughey as his nemesis, Walter Paddick. Critics Flanagan said of the film, "We can't let this be the last word. We really can't."

Flanagan has said that the big idea is for five seasons of The Dark Tower, followed by two standalone films. Or, as Flanagan put it more simply in this new interview: "Just doing the books and doing them in order."

Flanagan explained, "Stephen King is a genius in the way he made The Dark Tower, because he starts this potentially giant world-building, a huge story with two people in a landscape with no details. It's the easiest start."

This is one of the most perfect lines in any book: "The man in black fled across the desert, and the rifleman followed him." There are two characters. There is a clear goal, one escapes, one chases, and it is desert. There is nothing else to look at. It's very simple and clean, and on top of that base, it adds the world one brick at a time.

And so this is the way to do it. The problem with other methods is people trying to jump in the middle, or people trying to jump in at a different point, because you can't throw the audience into this huge world first. It is exhausting. And King did it right. He takes you in, starts with two people and nothing else and takes you one step at a time. So my adaptation was just doing the books and doing them in order. And you make a few changes to fit the mold, but my Dark Tower approach is remarkably faithful. And so 70% of my work is done for me by Steve so it's not that hard. "You know, the problem is figuring out how to get in."

The question is, will Flanagan have the opportunity to realize his vision? The Dark Tower is not part of Flanagan's big Amazon deal, though he has suggested that Prime Video could eventually get behind it. Next up for the horror expert is Amazon's TV show adaptation of Warhammer 40,000, which he says is much more difficult to adapt than The Dark Tower.

So while Flanagan's plan for the Dark Tower sounds great, if it ever comes to fruition, it will be years away.

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Wesley is the Managing Editor of IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. Wesley can be reached at @wesley_yinpoole or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.