Mike Flanagan is the best friend of every Constant Reader. His passion for Stephen King has been present since the very beginning of his filmmaking career (he’s admitted that his debut short film is an extremely loose take on “1408”), and the link between him and the author is only growing stronger. Having already made Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep and The Life Of Chuck – three of the best King movies of all time – Flanagan is now working on a Carrie limited series for Amazon Prime Video in addition to developing his dream adaptation of The Dark Tower. And as though that weren’t enough, he’s also now contributing to a new literary project that will expand the canon of The Shining.
News about that newly announced book is the lead story for this week’s edition of The King Beat, but also waiting for you in this column is an update about the alternate ending of Francis Lawrence’s The Long Walk that fans will definitely want to know about. There’s a lot to discuss, so let’s dig in!
Views From The Overlook Will Reveal Stories From The Dark Past Of The Overlook Hotel
As I’ve frequently repeated in this column since the start of the year, 2025 has been heaven for Stephen King fans. There have been multiple movies and TV shows (The Monkey, The Life Of Chuck, The Institute, The Long Walk, IT: Welcome To Derry and The Running Man) and two new books from the author himself (Never Flinch and Hansel & Gretel) – but the most surprising treat of all has arguably been the anthology The End Of The World As We Know It. The hefty collection is a spectacular expansion of the canon from The Stand, with some of the best writers of today contributing stories set in the world ravaged by the deadly virus known as Captain Trips.
Now, a similar project is in the works, but the focus will be on a different Stephen King novel this time around – namely The Shining.
This week, Publishers Marketplace posted a deal report revealing the development of Views From The Overlook, which is being assembled by Jamie Flanagan – who is the sibling of Mike Flanagan and is best known for their work as a writer and producer on streaming shows including The Haunting Of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, and The Fall Of The House Of Usher. The full list of creatives contributing to the anthology is not revealed, but some of the authors who will have work featured are Mike Flanagan, Chuck Palahniuk, Christopher Golden and Brian Keene (Golden and Keene, I should note, spearheaded and edited The End Of The World As We Know It).
While the anthology expanding the world of The Stand includes tales that are set before, during, and after the events that take place in Stephen King’s book, Views From The Overlook will function differently, as it will only include prequel stories (though that shouldn’t be too surprising to anyone who has read The Shining, given that the building burns down at the end of the novel). The Overlook Hotel has a very dark history – as Jack Torrance starts to discover shortly before he loses his mind – and this new work will explore some of those nightmares.
Of course, this will be Mike Flanagan’s second time visiting the haunted hotel in the remote/fictional mountain town of Sidewinder, Colorado – but no matter what story he decides to tell, it will be significantly different from the epic effort that went into the making of Doctor Sleep. In the making of the brilliant 2019 film, Flanagan had the extreme challenge of taking Stephen King’s sequel novel and figuring out a way to marry it to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (which the author famously dislikes).
With Views From The Overlook, he’ll have vastly more creative freedom, even if he opts to write about one of the ghosts that we already know about. Obviously we don’t know any of the “rules” for the project just yet, but it will be fascinating to see if he ends up writing a totally original tale or fills in some of the gaps with a story that King only teased in his book (my hope is for the former, but you certainly wouldn’t hear any complaints from me if he were to let us know a bit more about the lives of the Grady family).
When will we actually get to pick up a copy and read Views From The Overlook? That’s unfortunately a question that doesn’t seem to have an answer yet, and the truth is that it may be a minute. The End Of The World As We Know It was first announced in October 2023 (at which time it got the public stamp of approval from Stephen King), and while we got occasional updates about its progress as it developed, the hardcover didn’t arrive in stores until this past August. A matching timeline would suggest that we won’t be devouring Jamie Flanagan’s book until the summer of 2027… but it could move faster, and it could move slower.
It should go without saying that I’ll be keeping my ear to the ground for news about its forward progress and information about who else will have stories featured. I would personally love to see more overlap with the talents behind The Stand anthology, including names like Paul Tremblay, Josh Malerman, Joe R. Lansdale, Bev Vincent, and Catriona Ward.
In the meantime, those of you who haven’t picked up a copy of The End Of The World As We Know It are missing out, as there are not only a number of excellent, freaky tales in between the covers, but there is also a whole lot of love for the storytelling magic of Stephen King.
Want To See The Long Walk’s Alternate Ending? You’ll Need To Purchase The 4K UHD Steelbook
A month ago, I included a section in The King Beat highlighting pre-orders being made available for The Long Walk on home video – with a specific focus on the 4K UHD Steelbook (which is the format/packaging that I would argue is the best available in the modern market). I noted that in addition to including the Francis Lawrence-directed Stephen King adaptation, there are also going to be a number of special features, with the most intriguing being an alternate ending.
What I didn’t know then but learned this week is this: if you want to see that alternate ending and a pair of other extras, the 4K UHD Steelbook is going to be your only option.
Lionsgate sent out an official press release on Tuesday with dates for The Long Walk’s home video rollout, and among the intriguing details is the news that the distribution of special features won’t be universal. Standard 4K UHD and Blu-ray releases will include theatrical trailers and a multi-part documentary titled Ever Onward: Making The Long Walk, but those of you who purchase the Steelbook (which is only available via Amazon) will get three exclusives:
- Alternate Ending
- Stephen King: An Appreciation
- Cooper & David Scene Read
There isn’t any additional information currently available regarding content details or runtimes, but for me, the alternate ending alone makes it worth the price, as I am immensely curious to find out how it is different than what audiences got to see in The Long Walk’s theatrical cut. Considering that the movie as we know it deviates significantly from Stephen King’s book, part of me wonders if the cut conclusion is a more faithful adaptation of the source material… but it also could be something completely different, or something similar to what we’ve seen but with certain choices changed.
For those of you who missed the movie in theaters and/or don’t want to wait for the physical media release, The Long Walk will be made available for digital rental/purchase starting next Tuesday, October 21. Both the 4K UHD Steelbook and the Blu-ray will be available on November 25 (albeit it’s not exactly a Thanksgiving movie), and the standard 4K UHD will be out a little less than a month later on December 23 (it’s DEFINITELY not a Christmas movie). As previously noted, you can place pre-orders now.
You can be sure that this won’t be the last time I report about The Long Walk alternate ending here on CinemaBlend; be on the lookout in coming weeks for more details and analysis when I finally get to see it for myself and can compare it to both the book’s ending and what’s currently playing in theaters everywhere.
And speaking of the near future, while you’ve now reached the end of this week’s edition of The King Beat, I’ll be back here next Thursday with a brand new column full of goodies and updates from the world of Stephen King. In recent days, I’ve been conducting a number of interviews with both the stars of and filmmakers behind the new HBO series IT: Welcome To Derry, so be on the lookout for stories from those conversations and much more.