I don't want to get too excited yet....Ive heard it all before. Everyone has tried to do an adaptation of Stephen King's seven part Weird Western, Fantasy, Horror epic The Dark Tower. First as a TV series, then as a Trilogy, then as a TV series again. Even JJ Abrams tried it....and couldn't.
Well NBC/Universal has announced today that they signed a deal with Stephen King to have all 7 books adapted into 3 movies and (from what Ive been hearing) 2 TV series'. Ron Howard is directing the first film and the first season, Akiva Goldsman is Adapting it, and Brian Grazer will be producing it. Details on the following seasons and film haven't been announced yet.
I dont think this has ever been done before, The New York Times described it as if Lord of the Rings had had a TV series in between each film to bridge the films.....and I agree, although I wonder if it will all be coming out within a few years of each other......and we can expect the cast to be mostly Unknowns due to the high level of commitment they will need to have. I dont think a cast has had this level of involvement in a film series since Harry Potter.
I believe the source for this is Deadline.com so Ill link to that (although its been fire-storming through the Internet so a Google News search will basically bring up the story from most of the news sites.)
The Dark Tower is one of my absolute favorites, I hope this happens! I'll report more on this as details become available!
7 comments:
I still hope this dies off. The thought of a Dark Tower adaptation fills me with utter dread (unless someone told me to do it but that would fail too cause I'd do it animated). There's too much going on and too much that would be cut out or dumbed down for the average person. Not to mention, you KNOW they'll change the end.
It could be great and it could be a disaster....personally Ill wait for some info before making a judgment. I like the idea of the Movie/TV series adaptations, and that could help to justify the scope of the story, but Ive seen ambitious projects like this fall on their face more often than not.
It's too big for this to work properly and there's too much that doesn't fit well into TV shows. It could be done but frankly, I don't trust anyone but a team of hardcore tower junkies (myself included) to pull it off.
I'm fairly certain, no matter what, they're gonna have to do this in chronological order. The order in the books works, with flashbacks and all, but TV/movies don't work so well like that.
From what I had heard, they were planning 3 movies and 2 TV series, and they want to delve into Rolands past, which means Susan and the Fall of Gilead...and the format might work too, Gunslinger would make a really good first movie, Drawing of the Three would make a good TV series due to its episodic nature. The Wasteland would make a good epic second film, and Wizard and Glass would make a good TV series with it being mostly about Young Roland....but Wolves of the Calla would be the next film (and it could be a good one) but then there are still two more books to be filmed. and I haven't read Song of Susanna yet so I dont know if it would be a good TV series, also I know its short.
They haven't said what the format will be yet, meaning what will be a movie and what will be a TV series, they could do chronologically and mix and match, adding stuff that isn't in the novels but is in the comics, but I love the opening scene with Roland in the desert and learning his story as his quest progresses. we'll see,. I'm hopeful that it can be done well. I'm sure we'll start hearing stuff fairly soon.
Song of Susannah is really short and would be served better as an end block to a TV season than its own movie. Honestly, what I'm most worried about is the last book. There is SO goddamn much that happens in that last book. All the resolutions, plot tie-ups and of course the finale of the Roland's quest. And what's worse is that the end is not TV/Movie friendly...at all.
Copy Ashe. I can't imagine Clint signing on for this, and nobody else will do. Also, I'm pretty sure my favorite pick for a soundtrack composer, namely Death in June, will also be absent. A little trip though the Wastelands on Blaine the Mono seems irresistible, but with Ron Howard at the helm, we might get Thomas the Tank Engine instead.
That's very true darqmommy, just look a Harry Potter. Whats better Harry Potter with Chris Columbus where he basically did a straight adaption and brought nothing interesting to the material, just an overly saturated family friendly sense of "wonder" and "magic", or Alfons Curon and David Yates who actually darkened things up and brought REAL magic to the filming and story? They move the camera in and out of mirrors and windows, and (especially in Curon's case) brought an almost German Expressionist sense to the filming with iris outs and muted colors!
I hope the material can transcend the filmmaker, but yeah, Ron Howard is more in the Columbus camp of filmmakers. Although I did like The Missing, and it had some truly frightening moments so who knows....
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