No Tower for Abrams

There’s something respectful in hearing that someone doesn’t want to adapt a piece of written work.

After the idea getting tossed around for a bit JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof have decided not to do Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower”.

Getting Abrams and Lindelof to do it might have been a good idea. Abrams told MTV, “The ‘Dark Tower’ thing is tricky. It’s such an important piece of writing. The truth is that Damon and I are not looking at that right now.” He’s got that right. ‘Dark Tower’ is a great story and I’m sure it’s a bit intimidating trying to adapt something like that.

Being a huge fan of the content also makes thing a lot harder, “You’ll be hard-pressed to find a huger fan of ‘The Dark Tower’ than me, but that’s probably the reason that I shouldn’t be the one to adapt it. After working six years on ‘Lost,’ the last thing I want to do is spend the next seven years adapting one of my favorite books of all time. I’m such a massive Stephen King fan that I’m terrified of screwing it up. I’d do anything to see those movies written by someone else. My guess is they will get made because they’re so incredible. But not by me.” You would seriously have to dedicate a massive amount of time to a project like that.

It’s probably better off that they aren’t doing it, but it does leave it open for others to do. Not that I don’t think someone else could do a good job, it’s just a difficult task. Seeing the monster that was WATCHMEN scared Lindelof off a little, “Having seen Zack go through what he went through on ‘Watchmen’ in terms of saying where can I digress from the material, I just get headaches thinking about changing anything.” I loved WATCHMEN, but got sad when I saw something changed or taken out of the story. It just didn’t feel the same. This is a good move on behalf of Lindelof and Abrams. What I want to know is, if they don’t do it, who will?