Ron Howard has grand plans for The Dark Tower, initially setting up it up as a trilogy at Universal Pictures, with two limited-run TV series’ to air between the movies. However the studio was nervous and wouldn’t commit to the entire thing, and so they dropped it.
More recently Warner Bros has been sniffing around and now Deadline reports the studio is about to receive a new version of the script by Akiva Goldsman, and that Russell Crowe may be stepping in to play Roland Deschain, a role previously set for Javier Bardem. The studio will make their decision on whether or not to give a green light to the ambitious project within the next two weeks.
Crowe’s involvement isn’t definite yet, but the actor has been discussing it with Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, and getting an A-list star may be a key component in getting this ambitious project off the ground. The film is about Deschain, the last in a long line of gunfighters, who journeys to The Dark Tower in a last-ditch effort to save humanity, based on Stephen King’s seven-part book series.