I’m not entirely sure whether this is worth reporting, not because it isn’t news, but because so many people have talked about adapting Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series for either film or television over the years, that it’s starting to seem a bit like tilting at windmills (indeed, for quite a while King wouldn’t give the rights to anyone, as even he thought it was unfilmable).
Until recently, it was JJ Abrams who was talking up how he wanted to take King’s books to the screen. However he recently gave up, saying “After working six years on Lost, the last thing I want to do is spend the next seven years adapting one of my favorite books of all time. I’m such a massive Stephen King fan that I’m terrified of screwing it up. I’d do anything to see those movies written by someone else.”
Well, it seems he may have the chance, as THR reports that producers Akiva Goldsman, Brian Grazer and Ron Howard are in talks with Stephen King to pick up the rights to the seven book series (published between 1982 and 2004), with the hope they can finally bring the story to the big screen.
The Dark Tower books are set in an alternate world resembling the Old West and focus on the last member of an ancient order of ‘gunslingers’ and his quest toward a tower that’s also the centre of all universes.
However, like I said, it may be tilting at windmills, as it’s an enormous and complex series of works, which presents the challenge of mixing fantasy, horror, parallel universes, skipping timelines and various other elements that would be difficult to film. However the current plan seems to be to try and get around that by mixing film and television. The idea is to start things off with a big budget movie written by Goldman and directed by Howard (although Deadline suggests a trilogy of films), which would then lead into a TV series. However that’s a hell of an ambitious plan and involves a huge cash commitment on the part of any interested studio. It’d also have to contend with The Dark Tower’s loyal fans, who are bound to be suspicious of the guys behind The Da Vinci Code messing around with King’s sprawling work.
Maybe it’ll happen, but for now I’m not putting any bets on it.