Ambitous Adaptation of The Dark Tower Halfway There; TV Portion Set
Posted 10.26.11 by Ryan
Last September, Universal unveiled its ambitious plan to adapt Stephen King's massive The Dark Tower series of novels (an eighth book is set to arrive next spring), which included a trilogy of movies, with two TV series to air in-between each movie. While fans had to be pleased with the scale of the adaptation, the studio eventually found the project to be "too costly [and] too big a risk".
The adaptation's Academy Award–winning creative team of director Ron Howard, screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, and producer Brian Grazer — all of whom worked together on 2001's A Beautiful Mind — didn't give up, and now have at least the TV portion of the adaptation set up.
During an interview with MTV, Grazer revealed that HBO will air the TV series that will occur between the movie trilogy.
We're going to do [The Dark Tower] with HBO," Grazer told us. "We'll do the TV with HBO, and we'll do the movie with… to be determined. We'll do it right.
Universal balked at the high price tag of the Dark Tower adaptation, but Grazer maintains that the budget of the movie portion should be acceptable to another studio.
We're going to do that movie. We've lost $45 million out of the budget. When people say no to you enough, then you have to lose money, which we've done without harming the scope of the film.
When asked whether The Dark Tower will be able to retain Javier Bardem, who was cast in the lead role of gunslinger Roland Deschain, Grazer responded, "I think so."
With HBO stepping up for the TV series portion, now The Dark Tower needs to find a studio to handle the movies. For fans of the long-running series, a sigh of relief is finally acceptable.