Summary

• The Life of Chuck offers a chance for Mike Flanagan to bring back a narrative technique from his earlier films.
• Flanagan's upcoming Stephen King movie marks a shift back to movies after his successful TV series on Netflix.
• By exploring Chuck's life in reverse chronological order, Flanagan may utilize parallel timelines trick for added suspense.

Mike Flanagan’s upcoming Stephen King movie, The Life of Chuck, provides a great opportunity to bring back a narrative technique from his 2013 movie. Over the past several years, the legendary filmmaker has achieved widespread critical acclaim and audience popularity for his horror series on Netflix. Kicking off with The Haunting of Hill House in 2018, Mike Flanagan’s Netflix horror show stint came to an end after five outings with The Fall of the House of Usher, following which the director struck a new deal with Amazon. Of course, Flanagan has also been the creative force behind various acclaimed horror movies over the past decade, including 2019’s Doctor Sleep.

Currently, it seems Flanagan’s eyes are on his film pursuits rather than TV, with his next project being a movie adaptation of Stephen King’s The Life of Chuck novella. Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck movie marks his first film since Doctor Sleep in 2019, another Stephen King adaptation, which was directly preceded by Gerald’s Game in 2017, also based on a King novel. Flanagan’s prior films were largely based on original stories, including Hush, Before I Wake, Oculus, and Absentia. Now that the horror auteur is returning to film, one of his classic narrative devices could also return to this medium after a decade-long hiatus.

The Life of Chuck film has not received an official release date, but is expected to premiere in 2024.

The Life Of Chuck Can Revive Mike Flanagan's Multiple Timelines Trick In His Movies, 10 Years After Oculus

Oculus was the last movie that used his parallel timelines trick

The way that Stephen King structured The Life of Chuck in his 2020 book sets up the opportunity for Mike Flanagan to change the storytelling slightly and integrate his frequent approach to multiple timelines. The Life of Chuck novella is structured in three acts, with the titular character’s life being explored in reverse chronological order. While Mike Flanagan has often included flashbacks in his movies, such as in Gerald’s Game, his most clever parallel timeline device in the film medium was used in his 2014 movie Oculus – and it could finally return in The Life of Chuck movie.

Starring Karen Gillan, who Flanagan is reuniting with in The Life of Chuck, Oculus seamlessly transitions back and forth between past and present timelines, thus increasing the film’s suspense while keeping both narratives equally engaging. This trick was used back when Flanagan was still early into his feature film directing career, so bringing it back for The Life of Chuck would bring the device to an entirely new level of mastery. With The Life of Chuck’s narrative being told across three different timelines, it seems likely that Flanagan will use this technique again to weave together the stories of Chuck at these points in his life.

With The Life of Chuck’s narrative being told across three different timelines, it seems likely that Flanagan will use this technique again to weave together the stories of Chuck at these points in his life.

Parallel Timelines Are A Common Aspect Of Mike Flanagan's Horror TV Shows

The Haunting of Hill House is his most famous example

The notion that The Life of Chuck could bounce between timelines throughout the movie is also made more probable by Mike Flanagan’s hit Netflix shows in the years after Oculus. His parallel timelines technique was perhaps most memorably used in The Haunting of Hill House, which jumped between the Crain family’s experiences in 1993 and 2018. He also notably utilized the weaving of multiple timelines in The Haunting of Bly Manor in 2020 and The Fall of the House of Usher in 2023, which makes the possibility of this concept’s return in The Life of Chuck movie all the more exciting.