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When one looks back on the full legacy of Stephen King, 2025 will be remembered as one of the all-time greatest years for the legendary storyteller – and I say that without a trace of worry about recency bias. On the book front, Constant Readers got both the novel Never Flinch and the illustrated fairy tale Hansel & Gretel (not to mention the Stand-inspired anthology The End of the World As We Know It); the big screen saw premieres of Osgood Perkins’ The Monkey, Mike Flanagan’s The Life Of Chuck, Francis Lawrence’s The Long Walk and Edgar Wright’s The Running Man; and the small screen saw debuts of MGM+’s The Institute and HBO’s IT: Welcome To Derry. It was an unprecedented year in the world of King in terms of “new.”
The bad news? After such a rich 12 months, 2026 is going to look a bit bereft by comparison, as there aren’t anywhere near as many new projects set to be published or premiered. That being said, just because there isn’t an overabundance flooding the calendar doesn’t mean that there aren’t some key, exciting developments to follow in the coming year, and so, for this final edition of The King Beat in 2025, I’m going to highlight four key projects that are expected to see significant progress in the near future. It’s a rich and exciting subject, so let’s dig in!
Can Mike Flanagan’s Limited Series Adaptation Of Carrie Deliver Something Audiences Have Never Seen Before?
Mike Flanagan has earned the unbridled trust of Stephen King fans. Gerald’s Game is an emotional, horrific, and thrilling marvel; Doctor Sleep is what I like to call the cinematic equivalent of a miracle, easing decades-long tensions between King and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining; and The Life Of Chuck can be called one of the most beautiful, humanistic films of the 21st century. Flanagan has repeatedly shown to have a crystal clear understanding of King’s creative visions, and he is two-for-two in adapting what might be considered unadaptable works.
And yet, despite that massively successful track record, there remain some significant question marks around what is presently the only Stephen King adaptation targeting release in 2026: Amazon Prime Video’s limited series Carrie.
One doesn’t need to be a die-hard Stephen King fan to understand any concern. Carrie, which was the first book the author had published, is an iconic work of fiction… and part of the reason for that status is because of past adaptations. Brian DePalma’s film from 1976 is considered by many to be one of the greatest horror movies of all time and set a high bar for all future swings at the material, and yet, we got a TV movie in 2002 (that was originally meant to be a backdoor pilot) and a remake in 2013. The world is so aware of the tale that the titular character’s name is synonymous with any bad high school prom.
We already know what some changes are going to be incorporated with the new take, as it’s been reported that the story will begin shortly after the death of Carrie’s father (a plot development that isn’t in the book), but even with that, there is going to be a heavy onus on the show to have something new to say and develop stakes that keep the audience compelled instead of just waiting for the pigs blood to drop.
What Will Stephen King’s Untitled Sequel To The Talisman And Black House Be?
At this time in 2024, Constant Readers already had the release date of Never Flinch marked on calendars and had started counting down the days until the new Holly Gibney novel would be in stores, but similar promises have not yet been made for 2026. At the time that I am writing this, a Stephen King book is not currently featured on the upcoming publication calendar.
Of course, that’s expected to change. One has to go back to 1976 – between the publication of Salem’s Lot and The Shining – to find a year that didn’t feature at least one new book from the beloved author, and with no anticipation that streak will end, we even have a solid idea of what the new work is going to be. Back in the early summer, King confirmed that he had completed the first draft of the novel that we still only know as The Talisman 3, which fans have been anticipating since the publication of Black House in 2001. We don’t know exactly when it’s coming, but we know that it’s coming.
For the uninitiated, the developing book is the second sequel to The Talisman, which was co-written by King and Peter Straub and first published in 1984. It tells the adventure of a 12-year-old boy who finds himself on a quest for a relic that he is told will help cure his mother of a fatal cancer. Helping to accomplish this mission is a special ability to “flip” to an alternate, fantastical dimension known as The Territories. Black House (also co-written by Straub) reintroduces Jack as a young adult and retired police detective who finds himself on the hunt for a serial killer whom he discovers has ties to the magical world he traveled to as a child.
Because Peter Straub passed away in 2022, the third book will be the first in the series that Stephen King has penned solo – though his collaborator is getting a posthumous credit on the work, having helped develop the idea for the story that his co-author has explored. It has been said by King that inspiration for the book has come from the dark crimes committed by spree killer Charles Starkweather, but it’s unclear what we can expect from the next chapter in the life of Jack Sawyer.
Fans are presently starving for plot details… but for now, I’d settle for just a release date.
Will We Be Getting Two More Seasons Of IT: Welcome To Derry?
Earlier this month, IT: Welcome To Derry aired its Season 1 finale, and while the arc saw the conclusion of Pennywise’s campaign of terror in 1962, there is still a great deal more story to tell. It has been discussed from the very beginning of the show’s development that there is a three-season vision that is being executed, and the plan is to move backwards in time – with Season 2 being principally set in 1935 and Season 3 exploring the events in the eponymous Maine town in 1908.
There is just one big speedbump in the way: HBO has not yet given the green light to a Season 2, let alone a Season 3.
It’s a headscratching development for multiple reasons. For one thing, the premium cable network hasn’t shown a hesitance toward renewals in recent weeks, as it was just in late November that The Chair Company Season 2 was ordered and House Of The Dragon was confirmed to have a Season 4. It’s also not as though the show was unpopular, as it had high viewership from the very start (per The Wrap, it was the third biggest debut ever on HBO Max, behind only House Of The Dragon and The Last Of Us) and the audience only grew (Deadline reports that the finale earned the highest ratings of Season 1).
It’s unclear what is presently stopping HBO from committing to the show. My biggest hope is that it’s a prolonged process because the creatives are aiming to secure a multi-season deal that will ensure that the aforementioned vision for IT: Welcome To Derry gets executed. That would surely be a huge boon, as it would allow the writers to seed certain big picture ideas into Season 2 without the fear of creating loose threads.
Whenever we do finally get news about the future of the Stephen King series, you can be sure that you’ll find reporting on it here on CinemaBlend.
Any Progress For Mike Flanagan’s The Dark Tower Is Good News
Lastly, I’ll circle back to Mike Flanagan, as Carrie isn’t the only Stephen King-related iron he currently has in the fire. He is also currently busy making a new Exorcist movie for Universal Pictures starring Scarlett Johansson, but he is also persistently working to accomplish his dream of crafting a proper adaptation of The Dark Tower.
It was three years ago this month that Flanagan first landed the rights to Stephen King’s multi-genre epic, and while there has been little in the way of what could be called public-facing progress, the filmmaker has consistently remained optimistic about the project. He has described the behind-the-scenes moves to make the adaptation as being akin to navigating an oil tanker, and he noted this past summer that the project is made complicated by the way in which the Dark Tower books utilizes elements from a wide array of books in the King canon.
As far as expectations are concerned, I don’t anticipate that we’ll soon be getting news about casting and a production start date, but I am hopeful that the year ahead will at least provide droplets of good news about The Dark Tower in 2026 that will keep fans around the world confident that Flanagan will eventually make his dream a reality.
With that final, optimistic sentiment, we’ve come to the end of this week’s edition of The King Beat, and I hope it leaves you with some warm feelings about the future as we get ever closer to 2026. While I’ll warn you now that I won’t have a new column live next Thursday, January 1, I’ll be back here on CinemaBlend with a fresh commentary and news from the world of Stephen King one week later on January 8. Happy holidays, fellow Constant Readers!
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