The last we heard about Stephen King’s THE DARK TOWER coming to the big screen was almost a year ago, back in May of 2009. At that time it seemed J.J. Abrams and his “Lost” team were gearing up to tackle THE DARK TOWER after they got off that damn island. Well folks, we’re whistling to a whole new tune now!
According to The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision blog, not only are Abrams and company off the project, but it seems none other than Ron Howard has signed on! And I’m not only talking about Howard either, super producers Brian Grazer and Akiva Goldsman are along for the ride as well! So what happened exactly?!
Unfortunately we’re not treated to the hard facts on the whole situation but what we do know is that Abrams’ Bad Robot shingle recently gave the rights to the epic series back to author Stephen King, who was quickly approached by Howard, Grazer and Goldsman. And here we are.
Now let’s allow ourselves a moment to speculate… Why would Abrams give this project away, especially after seeming so interested in it? My only guess is that Abrams’ upcoming slate is pretty full, and the filmmaker just couldn’t find room for DARK TOWER. I mean, STAR TREK 2 is probably gearing up to go soon plus the recently announced collaboration with Steven Spielberg among plenty of other things. Either that or Abrams had trouble hammering out the details for DARK TOWER. What do you guys think?
But that’s not all! Not only has it been announced that Howard and company are now tackling this project, but they’ve even talked about their plans for the series. Apparently the plan is for Akiva Goldsman to pen an adaptation of King’s DARK TOWER with Howard along to direct followed by a television series to come at us via Imagine’s small-screen divison. Sounds like we’re looking at something big here folks, which shouldn’t be much of a surprise considering how epic THE DARK TOWER saga is. Now no studio is attached to THE DARK TOWER yet but word has it Universal will soon be picking this one up.
So there you have it, a solid turn in the DARK TOWER legacy that we can mull over until this thing finally gets going. We’ll keep you updated with everything regarding this project but in the meantime go ahead and scope out the synopsis for THE DARK TOWER via Wikipedia:
In the story, Roland Deschain is the last living member of a knightly order known as gunslingers and the last of the line of “Arthur Eld”, his world’s analogue of King Arthur. The world he lives in is quite different from our own, yet it bears striking similarities to it. Politically organized along the lines of a feudal society, it shares technological and social characteristics with the American Old West but is also magical. While the magical aspects are largely gone from Mid-World, some vestiges of them remain, along with the relics of a highly advanced, but long vanished, society. Roland’s quest is to find the Dark Tower, a fabled building said to be the nexus of all universes. Roland’s world is said to have “moved on”, and indeed it appears to be coming apart at the seams±—mighty nations have been torn apart by war, entire cities and regions vanish without a trace and time does not flow in an orderly fashion. Even the Sun sometimes rises in the north and sets in the east. As the series opens, Roland’s motives, goals and age are unclear, though later installments shed light on these mysteries.
“Lost” star Evangeline Lilly
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