Carrie has been remade again and again. Its screen and stage history spans 6 major productions, counting the sequel: Brian De Palma’s 1976 film, a 1988 Broadway musical, the 1999 sequel The Rage: Carrie 2, a 2002 NBC TV movie, Kimberly Peirce’s 2013 film and Mike Flanagan’s 2026 Prime Video series. Stephen King published Carrie, his first novel, in 1974.
For comparison, King’s short story Children of the Corn has spawned 11 movies, starting with the 1984 film. That franchise total includes sequels, remakes and reboots, many only loosely based on the original story.
Mike Flanagan pitched his 2026 Carrie series around the cruelty teenagers face in the social media era. Stephen King initially told him, “I think it’s been done.”
Flanagan’s case for returning to the story was how much teenage life had changed: “Teenagers today deal with cruelty and anxiety to a degree Steve never could have contemplated 50 years ago.”
Bullying gives each generation a way into Carrie. The tools for humiliating someone change, and a new adaptation can explore what that cruelty looks like in its own time. That’s a reason to expect filmmakers to keep returning to King’s story.
King eventually praised Flanagan’s version as “brilliant.” He singled out its treatment of contemporary bullying: “What it has to say about social media is shocking and true.”
