Dark Tower movies in the works

[Mereel Ma'viin]

It's been confirmed recently that NBC Universal will be producing Stephen King's Dark Tower series for both the big and small screens. The current plan is to make three movies and two season-length TV miniseries, with the TV seasons as spacers between the movies. Also, they intend to film in a manner similar to Lord of the Rings, doing the whole thing as one enormous shoot.

It's an enormously ambitious project, and I can see several major pitfalls that they'll have to avoid. First, the series must be cast correctly. With the right cast, it has the potential to be really good, but if it doesn't mesh well, the project could easily be a disaster.

Also, it's my understanding that Ron Howard will direct. I haven't seen much of his work, but his name has been on several of NBC's more idiotic (and short-lived) TV offerings recently, which doesn't exactly inspire a great deal of confidence. I've heard that Stephen King will be personally involved, which is good, but we'll have to wait and see what happens.

Another thing is that they'll need to be really careful where and how they trim material in the screenplays. Off the top of my head, I can think of several sizable chunks of story that, while enjoyable to read, could safely be cut out of a script, but remove too much, or the wrong things, and the story could get confusing very fast.

I'll be very interested to see how this turns out. The Dark Tower is one of my favorite series, and I've been waiting to see it on film practically since I finished my first read-through of The Gunslinger.

One last note: NBC Universal has a (very tentative) release date for the first movie. It's set to hit theaters on May 17, 2013. I don't see them actually hitting that target, but it would be interesting if they could manage it, or one that's similar. 5+1+7+2+1+3 adds up to 19, which, as the Dark Tower fans among us will recall, is a number of power ;D

[Jos Nelsh]

Wow, that is some project! Thanks for posting.

Ciss is worried about it not turning out well.

I really hope they can pull this off. Some of King's books have been good on film, but most of the time the books are way better. This is really an ambitious project...

[Mereel Ma'viin]

I agree with you about some of the other King movies. Dreamcatcher and The Mist spring to mind as examples where the books were much, much better than the movies.

The Mist was okay, as far as the movie itself went, but why they felt the need to rewrite the ending the way they did is completely beyond me, and as for Dreamcatcher, it's Exhibit No. 1 as to why Lawrence Kasdan should never again be allowed near a Stephen King adaptation. That one still makes me mad, 'cause it could have been a decent movie if done right.

Then, on the other hand, you have Desperation, which was done for TV a few years back, and done surprisingly well. Religion in general, and Christianity in particular, has a tendency to prompt major rewrites in scripting, but the novel's religious themes actually made it into the movie more or less intact, and the movie itself was remarkably faithful to the book. The Dead Zone is also a pretty solid adaptation, if a bit rushed.

The biggest thing about The Dark Tower that worries me is the way that it ties in with so much of King's other work. Take Hearts in Atlantis, for example. In the film version, they completely cut out all of the Dark Tower references, essentially reducing it to a story set against a backdrop of some secret, never-revealed government project involving psychics. Problem is, the book meshes with DT 7 in a big way, so now if they want to remain true, they'll have to totally ignore the preexisting Hearts in Atlantis movie.

There's a lot that can go wrong, but I guess only time will tell how it all turns out. Personally, if it ends up straying too far from the source material, I'd rather see the plug pulled on the entire project than see a poorly-done adaptation.

[Mereel Ma'viin]

Word is that the leading role, the one that makes or breaks the entire project, the part of Roland Deschain of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger, has been offered to...

Javier Bardem.

...

No.

I'm sorry. Just, no.

I mean, come on. How many times have we heard Roland described as being like Clint Eastwood's "Man with No Name"? In my opinion, this just isn't going to cut it, sorry.

[Jos Nelsh]

Hm, I can't say I'm familiar with him. His face does look the 'Clint Eastwood' type, but I have no idea about his acting.

By the way, have you been reading the Dark Tower comics from Marvel? Ciss says they're really good. She's also reading the 'The Stand' comics.

[Mereel Ma'viin]

I've read all the way up through The Fall of Gilead. Been meaning to get The Battle of Jericho Hill, but haven't quite gotten around to it yet. I didn't know they were doing The Stand as a comic series, I'm going to have to look for that as well.

As for Bardem, I've never seen one of his movies either, but physically, he's all wrong, and he has a Spanish accent. If nothing else, the accent would ruin it for me.

I might be less irritated at the selection if I hadn't also heard that the top contender for the part of Susannah is a white woman. It's not like King was ambiguous about his characters, why is it so hard for these people to get it right?

[Jos Nelsh]

Yeah, I can see where you're coming from.