TV
Stephen King
Why the new ‘Carrie’ series is ‘so different’ from the Sissy Spacek film
Creator Mike Flanagan and star Summer H. Howell break down how their new TV adaptation of Stephen King’s “Carrie” will be substantially different, including in the iconic prom scene
Brendan MorrowUSA TODAY
Updated July 26, 2026, 5:07 p.m. ET
SAN DIEGO — Summer H. Howell may not have supernatural abilities like Carrie White, but before she was cast as the iconic Stephen King character, she had a bit of a premonition
For the 22-year-old actor, landing the lead role in the new “Carrie” television series based on King’s classic novel was a long process: Creator Mike Flanagan (“The Haunting of Hill House”) notes more than 1,000 actresses were considered. But Howell, sitting alongside Flanagan for a conversation with USA TODAY during San Diego Comic-Con, recalls a moment during her auditioning journey when she began feeling like good news was coming
“I remember this one week after doing another tape, I was like: ‘Something’s gonna happen,'” she says. “I started getting déjà vu. I started telling my family and friends, like, ‘I don’t know. I think they’re gonna want to talk to me.'”
Howell was right: She went on to book the part after an hour-long call, in which she had to act out four scenes. Before delivering an emotional monologue, she “was laying on the floor in my room, just telling myself all these affirmations why I deserve this, and I’ve come so far, and this is meant for me.” In a bit of unfortunate timing, though, Flanagan told her the role was hers on April Fools’ Day
“I had no idea what day it was. I had no idea what month it was,” he quips
“Carrie,” an upcoming eight-episode streaming series on Prime Video based on King’s 1974 novel about a bullied high school girl with telekinetic abilities, has received a number of adaptations over the years, including the seminal 1976 movie starring Sissy Spacek. Given that, many fans have been skeptical another “Carrie” is needed, and Flanagan initially felt the same way. But he came around after realizing that, rather than simply adapt the book again, he could do something completely new with it.
“There are two kinds of adaptation: There’s one where you’re trying to protect thethe other one is where you take it apart completely and build something new out of its pieces, and that was the reason to do this,” he says
“There was absolutely no point in trying to go back and do the kind of adaptation that had already been done and done so iconically and spectacularly. The only thing we could do was try to make something new.”
‘Our version of Carrie is so different’
In fact, Flanagan cast Howell specifically because “our version of Carrie is so different” than any previous one
“The Carrie that we were looking for, and the Carrie that Summer was able to embody, was one of curiosity and earnestness and openness and a delicate vulnerability that also hid fathoms of strength,” he explains, contrasting this with the “twitching ball of trauma” fans have seen in prior versions
That’s not to say this was a conscious choice on her part to differentiate herself from Spacek: Howell, who has been acting since age 8 and previously played Alice Pierce in the “Chucky” franchise, wasn’t even aware of “Carrie” before the show came along, and she hadn’t watched the Spacek movie until after she finished shooting
Flanagan spoke with Spacek “a few times” during the process and says the star was “very curious about” what he had up his sleeve. “It was really fun watching it go from this kind of protective curiosity into enthusiasm,” he says
For her part, Howell hasn’t met Spacek yet, but received a “hello through text” from the star of the 1976 film
Fans should expect “Carrie” to differ from the story they know in a number of other ways. For one, Flanagan says, “one of the biggest early surprises” will be the more nuanced way it depicts Carrie’s relationship with her abusive mother, Margaret, played this time by Samantha Sloyan
“The dynamic between Margaret and Carrie is different,” Howell says. “It’s based on love. Margaret is just fearful that her daughter is stepping out into this world that she doesn’t know much about either. We’ve both been secluded for a long time, and we love each other. It’s just the circumstances that start to pry us apart.”
How the iconic ‘Carrie’ prom scene will be revamped
But the core themes of the book remain in place, and Flanagan sees them as even more relevant in 2026 than ever
“One of the first images that came to me when contemplating this show is Carrie White walking through a metal detector, going through an active shooter drill,” he says. “The events at the prom in Stephen King’s mind were a burst of shocking high school violence. We live in a world now where much more explicit high school violence has become completely normalized, especially in the United States.”
It wouldn’t be “Carrie” without some version of that iconic prom scene, where, in the traditional story, Carrie is drenched in pig’s blood as part of a cruel prank. Flanagan says that yes, “we’re going to the prom,” but it will be “radically different” than fans expect
“I wanted people to think they knew what happened at the prom and be wrong,” he says. “That was something [Stephen King] was excited about, too. We’ve seen a beautiful version of the prom sequence that he wrote. What can we do that’s going to really surprise people? What can we do that’s going to really surprise ourselves? What can we do that’s going to surprise these characters? And so it’s one of the great joys of my career to take something that is familiar, and to put a completely different spin on it.”
Howell can’t say much about how the new prom sequence compares to classic one without spoiling it, though she playfully confirms “there’s blood.” She remembers being “very sticky” and having blood painted on her every morning before filming
“I’d stand in a tent with these goggles on so it didn’t get in my eyes. It was very funny looking,” she says. “I looked like a Minion.”
All eight episodes of “Carrie” debut on Prime Video on Oct. 7
