Some directors really enjoy using the same performers in all of their movies and television shows.
Working with Cillian Murphy and Michael Caine is something Christopher Nolan clearly seems to enjoy. The Coen Brothers and Frances McDormand share a similar bond, and Quentin Tarantino famously collaborates with Samuel L. Jackson at every opportunity.
Mike Flanagan's preferred actress seems to be Carla Gugino. The actress has appeared in Flanagan's Gerald's Game (a Stephen King adaptation), The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass and The Fall of the House of Usher.
Flanagan is currently busy developing plans for an ambitious adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower fantasy saga and it seems he's thinking of working with Gugino again.
In a new interview with The Playlist, Gugino confirmed that she's had talks with Flanagan about appearing in the adaptation but declined to share any additional details.
"There has been a conversation about ‘The Dark Tower,’ but I don’t have any intel I could share other than that. I do hope that it all comes together. I know that’s something he’s incredibly passionate about. I mean, I do think he is great, just as a Stephen King interpreter. And yet, he also has such a strong voice of his own that somehow is beautiful, you know?
‘Gerald’s Game’ is so true to the book, even to the point where the end, which I think is actually imperative, was a part of it that people really responded to or didn’t. And Mike was so clear about, ‘Well, that’s that’s what it is, though.’ And yet, I thought he did it so seamlessly.”
Per Flanagan, the plan for The Dark Tower saga calls for five-season television seasons, which will be followed up by two standalone feature films.
That make sense as King's fantasy saga spans 8 books: The Gunslinger (1982), The Drawing of the Three (1987), The Waste Lands (1991), Wizard and Glass (1997), The Little Sisters of Eluria (1998), Wolves of the Calla (2003), Song of Susannah (2004), The Dark Tower (2004), and The Wind Through the Keyhole (2012). It is inspired by the poem Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" by English poet and playwright, Robert Browning.
During the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike in August of last year, Flanagan said he was pleased with the progress of the adaptation and that the project would become his top priority once the strike ended.
Said Flanagan, "We have great partners on it that I can't talk about, and we've got some really exciting actors circling on it that I can't talk about, and we have some potentially groundbreaking approaches to the filmmaking of it that I just can't really talk about ... but what I can say is that my fears that any momentum we had developed was gonna be obliterated [by the strike], well, I don't really worry about that."
At first blush, it's hard to think of a main role that Gugino could portray in the adaptation as the main protagonist of the series is a gunslinger named Roland Deschain and his ka-tet (three supporting protagonists) all have distinct characteristics that would preclude Gugino.
Fans of Stephen King books are pointing to Rhea of the Cöos, the main antagonist of the fourth book, as a perfect role for Gugino.
Do you have ideas for who Gugino could play? Let us know in the comment section below.