Insomnia gains traction: Mike Flanagan’s next Stephen King adaptation?

As of July 2026, Mike Flanagan still hasn’t announced an adaptation of Stephen King’s 1994 novel Insomnia. Even so, people are already talking about it as a possible next step after Flanagan’s reported eight-episode Carrie miniseries for Prime Video.

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There’s no confirmation from Flanagan or King. Still, it’s easy to see why the idea keeps coming up. In Insomnia, King follows Ralph Roberts, a retiree in Derry, Maine, whose worsening lack of sleep starts peeling back the surface of the world around him. He begins seeing auras, strange supernatural figures, and an unseen conflict between “The Purpose” and “The Random.” The book mixes grief, aging, loss, mental decline, cosmic horror, and epic fantasy in a way that lines up neatly with the emotional register Flanagan brought to Gerald’s Game (2017), Doctor Sleep (2019), and The Life of Chuck (2024).

Then there’s the obvious problem. Close to 800 pages, Insomnia is close to 800 pages, built around elderly main characters, steeped in King mythology, and full of surreal material like the “little bald doctors.” That sounds far better suited to a miniseries than a single film.

If you’ve been tracking Flanagan’s run with Stephen King adaptations, this one feels like something to keep an eye on, especially since Insomnia connects directly to The Dark Tower and the Crimson King.

For now, though, it’s still a waiting game. Flanagan’s Dark Tower series reportedly has five seasons scripted and Stephen King’s approval, but as of July 2026 it still hasn’t received a green light. Carrie, meanwhile, is expected to hit Prime Video in fall 2026, after first-look images surfaced in mid-July.

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