Meet the “Flavengers” at the MIKE FLANAGAN panel
Mike Flanagan has provided an array of fresh films and series in the horror genre, giving the often-tired genre an exciting–and pretty creepy–new life. Top Netflix series include The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, The Haunting of Bly Manor, The Midnight Club, and The Fall of the House of Usher.
At NYCC ’24, the writer/director, along with three of his loyal actors (Carla Gugino, Kate Siegel, and Rahul Kohli), took to the panel stage and entertained a standing-room-only house of excited fans.
Moderated by Josh Horowitz, the panel felt warm, friendly, and welcoming. Flanagan and his cast members were down to earth, funny, charming, and clearly close with each other. It was revealed that they acknowledge that Flanagan has essentially created his own acting troupe since he casts the same actors in nearly every project. In their group messages with each other, they will playfully call themselves “The Flavengers,” and they also noted that Kohli has been removed from various text threads for dropping “a bomb of a joke.”
The panel reminisced about how they were appointed to their spot in the Flavengers and praised Flanagan for not only his talent but also his professional, productive, and familial sets. The love was obvious between the panelists, even beyond Flanagan and his wife Siegel (who also was not shy about giving her husband a little hell here and there, especially when she revealed he didn’t cast her in an early project).
The panel discussed future projects, namely the upcoming installment in The Exorcist universe. Flanagan made it a point to say it is not a remake but a new story in the series.
Flanagan has masterfully created movie and television versions of top horror writers’ work, namely Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King. While Usher deftly wove together some of Poe’s best and Dr. Sleep continued King’s world from The Shining, Flanagan discussed tackling one of King’s smaller works, The Life of Chuck starring Tom Hiddleston, due out next year. To balance out the smaller work, Flanagan is taking on something waaaay bigger…The Dark Tower series.
Flanagan shared:
“I’ve had the weirdest evolution of that relationship [with Stephen king] because when we did Gerald’s Game, I never spoke to him at all. He keeps it at a distance. He has a lot of approvals…Steve approves everything. Every cast member, every big decision. You submit to him and he approves it.
But there’s a wall that he is very comfortable on the other side of. He says all the time, ‘The book is mine, the movie is yours’.
I didn’t meet him until after Dr. Sleep was done. We brought the movie to Bangor and screened it for him. I sat next to him in an empty movie theater and watched Dr. Sleep…I was nauseous the whole time. I just stared at him, which actually made his experience really weird. But I asked him about that separation [he keeps] afterward, and he said, Well, I can’t lose. If the movie’s great, people say, Of course, it’s great. It’s based on a great book. But if the movie sucks, they say, The book was better.”
The panel ended with Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused game, where he asked random questions like what horror movie you saw way too young. Gugino revealed that for her it was Jaws at age 5. And she lived in Florida. Siegel explained why While You Were Sleeping is one of the most horrific movies ever made in her opinion.
Siegel said, “I have this real problem with reality not being reality. Imagine waking up from a coma and your life is entirely different and your whole family is like, This life is amazing for you. Look at your amazing life. And you’re like, This doesn’t feel right. And there’s this woman staring at you…so eventually, you just go along with it. You’re like, All right, this is my life now. And you’ve adopted this reality. And then it’s like, Ha ha, just kidding. I was lying the whole time. It’s psychological torture at the most specific moment. Terrifying. Peter Gallagher. The eyebrows.”
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