If you didn’t catch the news, word came down earlier this week that Universal dropped the forever-in-development film adaptation of Stephen King’s enormous Dark Tower series. With Ron Howard at the helm, the news came as a bit of a surprise. In all honesty, though, it was only a bit of a surprise. The series is huge, spanning seven novels (and an eighth follow up in the works). I’m not sure how it ever could have been translated to the big screen, even with a talent like Ron Howard directing.
The big screen may not be the right answer for the series, but with so many books being turned into successful television shows these days (see: Dexter, True Blood, Game of Thrones, the upcoming American Gods, etc) would the small screen be the right place for King’s opus? With a scope as huge as The Dark Tower novels, I’m inclined to answer “yes.” In fact, the original plan that Universal had for the series was a trilogy of movies, with TV miniseries in between each film. Though, honestly, I’m not sure how such an arrangement would have really worked smoothly.
The books follow the adventures of Roland Deschain as he searches for the mythical dark tower. The story is absolutely huge and sprawling. It pretty much served as a mash up of all of King’s ideas and even his novels, as characters from Salem’s Lot, The Stand, and Hearts of Atlantis weave their way in and out of the Dark Tower series. Different themes, moods, and even universes were explored through the seven novels, in a universe that was uniquely Stephen King’s.
I would love to see his bizarre and more often than not surreal series brought to life in a television show. Even that, though, would be a huge undertaking. The fact remains that, with seven novels, and such an immense story, even bringing it to television would be difficult. When reading it, the world felt so different than our own that I can only imagine the type of budget that would be required to adequately create it, let alone some of its monstrous, demonic inhabitants. It definitely would not be a family friendly show, and would almost have to be on a premium network to do justice to the source material, which limits the options quite a bit.
With all that being said, however, I’m still hoping that we get an adaptation some day. With Ron Howard’s production company still holding the rights (even if they don’t have a studio backing it anymore), it could still happen.
Clacked by Bob Degon
on Jul 21, 2011 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
