Carrie (miniseries)

Main

• Summer H. Howell as Carrie White, a meek and socially inept teenager who uses her newfound telekinesis to exact vengeance on her bullies
• Samantha Sloyan as Margaret White, Carrie's religious and abusive mother
• Siena Agudong as Sue Snell, a popular student who experiences remorse for partaking in Carrie's bullying
• Alison Thornton as Chris Hargensen, the ringleader of a pack of mean girls who bullies Carrie
• Joel Oulette as Tommy Ross, Sue's goodhearted boyfriend who agrees to take Carrie to the prom
• Josie Totah as Tina Blake, Chris' best friend and co-conspirator in a senior prom prank against Carrie
• Arthur Conti as Billy Nolan, Chris' juvenile delinquent boyfriend
• Thalia Dudek as Emaline
• Amber Midthunder as Rita Desjardin, Carrie's gym teacher who defends her against her bullies
• Matthew Lillard as Henry Grayle, the principal of Thomas Ewen Consolidated High School

Recurring

• Kate Siegel
• Michael Trucco as John Hargensen, Chris' wealthy lawyer father
• Katee Sackhoff as Judith Brigham, Margaret's mother and Carrie's maternal grandmother
• Rahul Kohli as Harold Allison, Margaret's stepfather
• Tim Bagley as John Brigham, Margaret's father and Carrie's maternal grandfather
• Heather Graham as Mrs. Hargensen, Chris' mother and John's wife
• Tahmoh Penikett as Ralph White, Margaret's husband and Carrie's late father
• Ruth Codd as Cara
• Crystal Balint
• Danielle Klaudt
• Mapuana Makia as Eleanor Snell, Sue's mother
• Rowan Danielle as Brooklyn
• Naika Toussaint
• Delainey Hayles
• Cassandra Naud
• Gil Bellows
• Mckayla Carse
• Olive Abercrombie as Abby

Development

In December 2022, Mike Flanagan signed a first-look overall TV deal with Amazon Studios.^[5] Upon striking the deal, Flanagan immediately tried to launch a televised adaptation of Stephen King's novel series The Dark Tower, a passion project of his he had discussed repeateadly over the years, but Flanagan found the project "one of the most complicated properties to get started" because getting its greenlight was a much longer and involved process than anything he had ever approached in his life, but then Amazon brought to him the idea to launch their partnership with an adaptation of King's novel Carrie (1974), with Flanagan proposing a new take that excited even King, leading him to assemble his frequent collaborators to do so.^[6] In October 2024, it was announced that Flanagan's first project under that deal would be a new adaptation of King's Carrie novel, in the form of an eight episode miniseries, at Amazon Prime Video. A writers' room was launched to flesh out the story. Flanagan had previously helmed adaptations of King's novels including Gerald's Game (2017), Doctor Sleep (2019), and The Life of Chuck (2024).^[7] Around this time, Flanagan pitched the film Clayface (2026) to James Gunn and Peter Safran for the DC Universe (DCU), which he developed and wrote, but when it came time to start production on it, Flanagan was unavailable to direct it due to his commitments to Carrie and The Exorcist: Martyrs (2027), resulting in James Watkins being hired instead.^[8] Flanagan served as writer and showrunner on the series, in addition to directing four episodes. King also executive produces the series.^[4]

Writing

Compared to most projects based on King's novels where stories have to be compressed, Flanagan acknowledged that, because the original Carrie novel is one of King's shortest books plus the fact that they would adapt it into an eight-episode miniseries, they had to expand the novel to tell Carrie White's story in a longform way. Despite the project's announcement as an adaptation, Flanagan never saw it as a straight one given how he deemed Brian De Palma as having adapted the story "faithfully and beautifully" in Carrie (1976), which was followed by a sequel The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999) and two more adaptations, which were Carrie (2002) and Carrie (2013), both "officially and unofficially", in addition to being imitated "scores of times", so for Flanagan, the only way he could approach a new version was to build something new out of the story's ingredients, as otherwise, there was really no purpose in trying to retread ground of something previously done.^[6]

For Flanagan, the themes King talked about in the original novel published in the 1970s of kidness versus cruelty, empathy and bullying or school violence have since become even more relevant by the 2020s more than the author could have contemplated because of society's relationship with technology and the degree to which violence encroaches high schoolers, especially in the United States of America, giving them the opportunity to tell a story about a modern teenage experience that could use the seeds of King's characters but express them in a completely different way. Unlike previous versions, Flanagan's version of Carrie White has spent her life hidden away at home with her mother Margaret, with the state not even knowing of their existence until the sudden death of Carrie's father and Margaret's husband Ralph, forcing a spotlight onto their household that prompts Carrie to enter public school for the first time in her life. Whereas De Palma's Carrie was a "clenched first who's absolutely shaking out there in the world", Flanagan's Carrie is "wide open", "eager", "curious" and "earnest", walking into teen age without without any sense of danger but with the innate trust in people and goodness. Likewise, in contrast to the tyrannical parental abuser she was in King's novel and De Palma's film, Margaret is a woman who fiercely loves her daughter and wants to protect her from the world's dangers which she is aware unlike her daughter, so she thinks because of her lack of knowledge on how to do so that the best way to protect her is to close her off not punitively but by creating a private utopia where Carrie exists curiously, earnestly, and wide open as she protects her from the world, giving them a completely different dynamic. Atlhough the serialized miniseries includes differences to the original novel, Flanagan confirmed that core events from the original story like familiar characters will still be mantained, like Chris Hargensen, Sue Snell, Tommy Ross, Billy Nolan, Rita Desjardin, Principal Grayle and Tina Blake among others, though new characters also appear such as one named Emaline.^[6]

In regards to other of the book's stables, the period scene at the bathroom that sets off the wave of bullying at Carrie and the Black Prom will be mantained as well, but Flanagan prefaced that the story will get there in completely different ways, with the prom's events completely different in that regard, which he remarked a wonderfully delicious and irresistible opportunity for someone when adapting material from its source. He did feel intimidated upon bringing up his concept to King, as he knows that changing things in adaptation requires an enormous amount of change, invention and re-contextualization, but concluded that was why he wanted to tackle on the project. As for his expansion plans, Flanagan further built out from the book's mythology, using its often underused moments as launching pads, like how previous adaptations such as De Palma's ignored various chapters including panicked 911 calls, police reports, courtroom testimonies and scientific investigations that attempted to explain Carrie's phenomenon, which implied Carrie was part of a sorority of very gifted women who had telekinetic powers. Flanagan opted to pick up and run with that plot point starting from the second episode, depicting a different, unique story of a different woman somewhere in the world coming to terms with her abilities while Carrie finds her specific place among them over the season.^[6]

Casting

In April 2025, Summer H. Howell was in talks to join in the lead role as Carrie White,^[9] and that Siena Agudong was cast as Sue Snell.^[10] In what he described one of the biggest casting searches of his career, Flanagan and his team saw more than a thousand actresses for Carrie, but many of the candidates understandably tempted to emulate Sissy Spacek's performance from the 1976 despite that being something the team quietly tried to avoid, though ironically, while Howell looked like Spacek back then, she brought a take entirely of her own that showed a performance too good that the team was willing to live with the physical similarities consequently.^[6] In May, Matthew Lillard was in talks to join the series in an undisclosed role and Howell was officially cast as Carrie.^[11]

In June, Lillard was confirmed to join the series, alongside Samantha Sloyan, Alison Thornton, Thalia Dudek, Amber Midthunder, Josie Totah, Arthur Conti, Joel Oulette, Kate Siegel, Michael Trucco, Katee Sackhoff, Rahul Kohli, Tim Bagley, Heather Graham, Tahmoh Penikett, Crystal Balint, Danielle Klaudt, Mapuana Makia, Rowan Danielle, Naika Toussaint, Delainey Hayles and Cassandra Naud.^[12][13] Flanagan wrote Margaret's role specifically for Sloyan, deeming it "the part she was born to play", comparing her to Bev Keane, the corrupt character she played in Flanagan's Netflix miniseries Midnight Mass (2019), but noting that much like Carrie, he and his team wanted to take a different approach on Margaret. Thalia Dudek also joins the cast as new character Emaline.^[6]

Filming

Principal photography began in Vancouver on June 16, 2025, and wrapped on October 25, 2025.^[14][15][16]

Broadcast

Carrie is set to be released globally with all eight episodes on Amazon Prime Video on October 7, 2026.^[3][18] Before the global release, the series is set to premiere in the "Primetime" program at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival in September 2026.^[19]

Tie-in media

A tie-in book edition based on the 1974 novel and the series is set to be released by Vintage Books on September 29, 2026.^[20]