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Deadline reports horror master Mike Flanagan (Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club, The Fall of the House of Usher) is attached to direct a new, eight-episode miniseries adapting Stephen King’s Carrie for Amazon.
Naturally, the story concerns Carrie White, the chronically bullied high schooler who suffers both at the hands of her callous classmates at school and her domineering mother at home. As studies performed by the U.S. government can attest, severe emotional trauma may lead to telekinetic psi powers, and as the story unfolds, you can bet your bottom dollar no one goes home happy on the night of Carrie’s ill-fated prom.
Discounting the Broadway and off-Broadway stage adaptations, Riverdale‘s musical homage, and the underrated The Rage: Carrie 2, this will be the fourth filmed version of the story to date. Following Brian De Palma’s still undefeated 1976 original starring Sissy Spacek in the title role, a made-for-TV version written by Bryan Fuller and starring Angela Bettis aired on ABC in 2002. In 2013, Chloë Grace Moretz took on the role for another theatrical outing directed by Kimberly Peirce and written by (you guessed it!) Riverdale showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.
While Flanagan has pretty much been batting 100 with his film and television projects of late, the question that immediately arose on io9’s estimable Slack channel was, “does this story really need to be eight hours long?” De Palma’s film ran just 98 minutes long, while Peirce’s well-intentioned but not-as-awesome remake was 99.
With the six-and-a-half additional hours, I suppose we’ll probably get better ideas of Sue Snell and Chris Hargensen’s home lives, or perhaps even flashbacks to Margaret White’s doomed marriage to Carrie’s father, Ralph—a character who’s either estranged (going by the films) or was killed in a construction site accident (according to the book). Either way, his absence is a key component to Carrie lore, yet still hasn’t been presented on screen.
Regrettably, as the news has only just broke, no actors are currently attached to the project, but you can bet the competition to play both Carrie and Margaret White (roles which granted both Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie Oscar nominations back in the day) will be absolutely fierce.
As Flanagan has a bullpen of favorite actors he likes to work with, there’s already an intriguing roster of potentials including for Margaret or the well-intentioned Ms. Desjardin/Collins/Gardener (per book/movie/Broadway), including Heather Langenkamp, Annabeth Gish, Kate Siegel, Carla Gugino, Katie Parker, Samantha Sloyan, Alex Essoe, and/or Elizabeth Reaser. To quote Carrie White’s reaction to Tommy Ross’s poem in Mr. Fromm’s English class: “It’s beautiful.”
Who do you hope to see cast in Flanagan’s Carrie? Let us know below!
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