Things are moving forward for The Dark Tower.
For many years now, filmmakers, studios, and screenwriters have been attempting to adapt Stephen King’s most ambitious literary project to film or television. At one point, Ron Howard was slated to direct. At one point, it was just going to be a TV miniseries. Many directors have been rumored to be working on it. Today at Comic-Con, it was finally revealed that the first film in the proposed series, The Gunslinger, finally has landed a director. Nikolaj Arcel, who co-wrote the Swedish adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is going to make the first chapter in the epic series. Arcel will be co-writing the film with Danish screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen. ‘
King’s Dark Tower series runs eight books, and the plan is to adapt all the details in all eight of them into films that will be supplemented with a concurrent TV series. Sony will be producing the movies, although no network has yet been selected for the show. Casting rumors have included Russell Crowe and Javier Bardem to play the lead character, known as The Gunslinger.
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The books in the series are The Gunslinger (1982), The Drawing of the Three (1987), The Waste Lands (1991), Wizard and Glass (1997), Wolves of the Calla (2003), Song of Susannah (2004), The Dark Tower (2004), and The Wind Through the Keyhole (2012). The books take place in a fantasy realm that resembles the Old West, but features knights and magic. If this project should come to pass, it will be the single most ambitious fantasy film project since The Lord of the Rings. More Dark Tower news as it develops.
Witney Seibold is a regular contributor to CraveOnline, where he co-hosts The B-Movies Podcast. He is also a contributor to Legion of Leia and Topless Robot. You can find him on “The Twitter” at @WitneySeibold.
