The ongoing saga to bring Stephen King’s The Dark Tower to the big (or small) screen seems to be taking as long as the series itself took to play out but it’s just hit a brick wall. Warner Bros. has completely passed on the project. So is that it for gunslinger Roland Deschain? Hit the jump to find out.
Before this latest bit of news, the last we heard about Ron Howard’s Dark Tower project was that Russel Crowe was attached to play the lead. Previously, Javier Bardem signed on to play Roland, the project was then canceled thanks to budget issues, then back on and getting a home on HBO, and then seemingly postponed indefinitely.
Here’s what The Hollywood Reporter had to say about today’s news:
Warner Bros. has passed on the project, making it the second studio to do so. The high-profile and ambitious package had Ron Howard attached to direct and Brian Grazer producing a script from Akiva Goldsman. It was to consist of three movies and two TV miniseries. The studio looked at the package as part of its weekend read and decided to pass.
Before Warner Bros. it was Universal who had the project – two major studios – with that in mind, does The Dark Tower stand a chance? Where there’s a will, there’s a way!
Deadline is reporting Media Rights Capital is in “serious talks” to pick up The Dark Tower from Imagine Entertainment. Here’s what they had to say:
MRC’s Modi Wiczyk is a big fan of the Stephen King novel series, I hear, and the company is eager to capitalize on the positive momentum they got from developing and financing the Seth MacFarlane-directed summer sleeper hit Ted with Mark Wahlberg. MRC next has the Neill Blomkamp-directed Elysium with Matt Damon, and the company has the capital to back an ambitious project like The Dark Tower with director Ron Howard eyeing Russell Crowe as the gunslinger Roland Deschain and his quest to travel through a Western-style world woven with magic to find the Dark Tower, mankind’s only hope.
On a scale of 1-10, I’m going to put a 4 on this ever happening. The Dark Tower definitely has a good fan base but it’s an incredibly tough series to try and adapt.
(via The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline)
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