Javier Bardem in the running for Ron Howard’s The Dark Tower adaptation?

Last Updated on July 23, 2021

Is there anyone you’d rather be than Javier Bardem? Wow. As far as acting goes, dude’s at the top of his game. He speaks like five languages and is shacked up with Penelope Cruz (below). What the hell am I doing with my life???

As the suicidal New Year’s thoughts percolate, I might as well tell you that Bardem (right) is now said to be the leading choice to top-line Ron Howard’s THE DARK TOWER adaptation. Seem like a good fit?

Word comes from The New York Post, who also verifies Viggo Mortensen being in the running, as we noted two weeks ago. Other names bandied about include Daniel Craig, Hugh Jackman and Jon Hamm. Being unfamiliar with the Stephen King novel, I couldn’t say which would ideally fit the part. But I bet you could…

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.

Expect to see THE DARK TOWER erected come May 17th, 2013.