2025 has been a big year for Stephen King adaptations, but really, just about every year is a big year for Stephen King adaptations, because people just can’t stop adapting – and watching – his stuff. In 2025 alone, there’s The Monkey, The Life of Chuck, The Long Walk, and The Running Man, the last of those looking to be a more faithful adaptation of the novel King wrote under his Richard Bachman pseudonym than the Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring film of the same name. But to focus on The Life of Chuck for a bit, that one’s been done by Mike Flanagan, who’s also decided that giving Carrie yet another adaptation is a good idea. If it’s good, then whatever. Feel free to tell someone to make like Werner Herzog and eat his shoe or something, if you have to. But Carrie was the first Stephen King story to get a major film adaptation, and that film is still pretty much perfect, so a Carrie miniseries seems like it’ll be a waste of time.
That book is lean, mean, and to the point, and though some things were left out of the 1976 movie, there weren’t so many things left out that a miniseries would have to be made to cover them all. Flanagan has certainly talked about doing something different and possibly exciting, but like… come on. Brian De Palma. 1976. Sissy Spacek. We have a great Carrie adaptation. And we also already have some not-so-great (and unnecessary) post-1976 Carrie-related adaptations. It’s bizarre to put this much time and effort into one more Carrie when there are other Stephen King stories out there that have been adapted before, but with flaws, arguably necessitating new adaptations. Well, if you don’t mind the idea of something being adapted multiple times to be a problem in the first place. This article is coming at the whole thing from the angle of: “If new adaptations of previously adapted stories have to happen, then these ones are better off being focused on instead of reheating already well-adapted stories like Carrie.”
10
‘Cycle of the Werewolf’ (1983)
Previously adapted into ‘Silver Bullet’ (1985)
Admittedly, Cycle of the Werewolf would be hard to nail down, as an adaptation, because it feels uniquely compelling as a novel, or novella, considering how small its page count is. The structure allows for quite a bit of time to be covered, though, with each chapter centering on a different month, specifically when the full moon is out for every month because, you know, werewolf.
When it received a film adaptation in the form of Silver Bullet, and the screenplay was adapted by King himself, the movie just didn’t quite capture what made the original story interesting. It’s hard to say why, and the movie itself isn’t terrible, just a bit ordinary. You could still call it something of a cult (almost) classic, but another attempt at a movie could well be an improvement, even if you’re not likely to get something amazing out of what’s a good – but fairly straightforward – story.
9
‘The Dead Zone’ (1979)
Previously adapted into a 1983 film and a TV series that ran from 2002 to 2007
A great Stephen King book that’s yet to get a truly great adaptation, The Dead Zone ought to be done again by someone, since getting it right would be great. The 1983 film really didn’t do the novel justice, and though not terrible, it was disappointing considering it had David Cronenberg as a director while also featuring a cast that included the likes of Christopher Walken and Martin Sheen.
It was also expanded and reworked into a TV series that aired throughout the 2000s, but that very much does its own thing with the source material and expands it, for better or worse, considering it ran for 80 episodes. A tight adaptation of The Dead Zone, centered mostly on preventing a nuclear apocalypse – and remaining as thrilling as the book – has yet to come to fruition.
8
‘The Tommyknockers’ (1987)
Previously adapted into a 1993 miniseries
Anyone trying to make some kind of sense out of The Tommyknockers through a film or TV adaptation would certainly be brave. It’s a behemoth novel that’s compelling at times while entirely losing the plot at other points, with Stephen King himself acknowledging as much, saying that even though he thinks it’s awful, there’s a good story buried in there somewhere.
This feels like the rare instance where someone could take some very flawed source material and improve upon it immensely.
And that, ideally, is what a great adaptation would be able to mine from this bizarre epic about the people of a town in Maine (it’s always Maine) finding their lives upturned by potentially extraterrestrial sources. It’s been adapted once before, as a miniseries, with King also not being particularly fond of that one. But still, this feels like the rare instance where someone could take some very flawed source material (hey, King said so himself) and improve upon it by condensing, removing, or emphasizing certain things.
7
‘Doctor Sleep’ (2013)
Previously adapted into a 2019 film
With 2019’s Doctor Sleep, Mike Flanagan had a stab at reconciling the differences between the book and movie versions of The Shining, all the while adapting the 2013 novel that was a sequel to King’s original The Shining. The novel did not acknowledge some of the differences found in the ending to Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation, while Flanagan’s movie does. Sort of. It really does its own thing by the end, perhaps even more than the 1980 The Shining adaptation did.
Anyway, that all means that one could technically adapt Doctor Sleep again and make it feel closer to the book, rather than a haphazard and bloated epic that wants to be a sequel to two quite different things at once. Or you could argue that would be silly, but there’s already an argument outlined above that another adaptation of Carrie is silly, so right back at ya.
6
”Salem’s Lot’ (1975)
Previously adapted into a 1979 miniseries, a 2004 miniseries, and a 2024 film
Released one year after the original novel of Carrie, ‘Salem’s Lot did not, like Carrie, receive a great movie adaptation immediately, instead getting a fairly well-received – but not quite great – miniseries adaptation in 1979. The 2004 miniseries was a little less liked, though not bad, but then the 2024 film was honestly pretty shoddy, failing to satisfy in the ways the novel did.
Though that novel isn’t one of Stephen King’s longest, it does have quite a few side characters and tangents to it that make the story more easily adaptable as a miniseries than a movie. Whether a miniseries could be done in a way that equals the original story quality-wise remains to be seen, but it feels like it could have more potential than a Carrie miniseries. And yes, even though 2024’s ‘Salem’s Lot was recent, maybe everyone should just pretend it didn’t happen and have another go at getting an adaptation right.
5
‘Pet Sematary’ (1983)
Previously adapted into a 1989 film and a 2019 film
Considered one of Stephen King’s darkest stories for good reason, Pet Sematary has been adapted into two films to date. The first one, from 1989, mostly gets the basics right and is moderately unnerving at times, but never on quite the same level as the book. The 2019 film is more of the same; it is just okay, albeit perhaps a little more underwhelming because it doesn’t really improve much about the 1989 film.
And, again, that 1989 film was a step-down compared to the novel, even if it was decently faithful and didn’t completely shy away from the heaviest parts of the novel. Maybe this story is always going to be scarier when read, versus when watched, but surely someone would be able to spin one of King’s most well-respected works into something a little more than “just pretty decent.”
4
‘It’ (1986)
Previously adapted into a 1990 miniseries and a film duology (2017, 2019)
This is going to be a controversial or even initially questionable pick, but hold on. It has been adapted twice, and both adaptations, though different, were pretty iconic and popular. The first was a miniseries made not long after the original novel was published, best remembered for having Tim Curry playing the titular villain, and then the second was a feature film duology, the first part coming out in 2017 and the second coming out in 2019.
It is a big novel, and the basics were covered in both adaptations, but a longer miniseries would be needed to cover everything. Also – and this is the big thing – no adaptation has properly replicated the structure of the novel, which is what makes it particularly compelling. The same characters face off against It as kids and adults, with the two adaptations to date mostly focusing on the kids in part 1, and the adults in part 2. In the novel, both confrontations are built to simultaneously, with one battle being read about at the same time as the other. The non-chronological storytelling has not been entirely captured or replicated on-screen yet, and if it could be – and was done right in other areas – there might well be an It adaptation that does the novel justice, and doesn’t suffer the fate of the others, where people not familiar with the novel find that the second part retreads the first to too great an extent. In the novel, both portions of the story are interesting, largely because they “happen” (well, are read) at the same time. The miniseries is a little more faithful to the structure of the book, admittedly, but it’s also not as strong when it comes to being scary (it’s kind of dated), and it’s shorter than the two-part movie adaptation, meaning it leaves more out. That movie adaptation is scarier and looks more cinematic, but you lose so much of the story’s greatness with the dramatic structure shakeup.
3
‘Cujo’ (1981)
Previously adapted into a 1983 film
Like Pet Sematary, Cujo is a rather dark early novel by Stephen King that got an adaptation not long after it was written, but said adaptation wasn’t on the same level as the novel. Though, to be fair to Pet Sematary, there was an attempt to capture the misery and heartbreak found in the story, while the 1983 film version of Cujo shies away from the heaviest and most emotionally taxing moment in the novel.
If you know, you know, but there are currently rumblings about another Cujo film with Darren Aronofsky possibly directing, and he’s not a filmmaker who shies away from misery, so he could probably handle an adaptation effectively. Also, if it comes out before the new Carrie series… uh, sorry. Just pretend it wasn’t in this ranking. Zap it out of your mind Men in Black-style.
2
‘The Stand’ (1978)
Previously adapted into a 1994 miniseries and a 2020–2021 miniseries
The Stand is a wild book, with its uncut version being about 1200 pages long, depending on which edition you buy (the formatting does vary). Either way, there is a ton of story here, and so to date, this post-apocalyptic tale about survival and an ultimate battle between good and evil has been adapted twice, and in both instances, the miniseries option was picked over making a feature film.
Like with Cujo, there are talks about a new movie adaptation being helmed. Like, good luck getting everything into one film. Doing it The Lord of the Rings-style, as in making one massive movie split into three parts, could work a whole lot better. The Stand is pretty evenly split into three acts: one about the influenza outbreak, the second about picking sides/settling down, and the third about an inevitable battle. One movie per act, like Peter Jackson did, could be cool, but who knows? Maybe it would still all be a bit too weird to spend a blockbuster-level amount of money on.
1
‘The Dark Tower’ series (1982–2004)
Previously adapted into a 2017 film, sort of
Mike Flanagan has been plenty busy lately, but he’s still attached to an adaptation of The Dark Tower that might happen… eventually? Some might say it’s not entirely fair to speculate on what might have prompted Carrie being prioritized over The Dark Tower, as far as Flanagan’s King adaptations go, but it does feel a tiny bit questionable. It can be questioned. There might be a good answer.
But it’s like… here’s this wild series that is often considered King’s magnum opus, and Flanagan seems to have enough goodwill to be the sort of person who could adapt the whole series as a TV show. The Dark Tower, outside the novel world, only exists as a kind of film adaptation in 2017 that wasn’t entirely an adaptation… whatever it was, it wasn’t great. It had some characters from the series, but misused or misunderstood them. Fans of Stephen King would eat up a decently-made The Dark Tower TV series, and that’s to say nothing of what they’d do if it were more than decent. Perhaps in a superior alternate universe, that universe’s Flanagan is working on The Dark Tower while our universe’s Flanagan works on (checks notes, sighs again) a Carrie miniseries.