Deadline has an update on a project I’m awaiting with an equal mix of dread and excitement, the Ron Howard-directed, Akiva Goldsman-scripted adaptation of the first of Stephen King‘s Dark Tower books, The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger.
Mike Fleming reports Howard’s comments to while discussing the Image/Reliance Writer’s Lab:
“It is going well, and it has been incredibly stimulating to work on,” Howard said. “It’s dense, a great author’s life work is not to be taken lightly. It has been utterly fascinating to explore it, and we are having great creative conversations. I’ve begun tossing and turning at 3 in the morning over it, so that’s a good sign.”
Evidently, Howard is planning a film trilogy based on the books, with a network television series between films. Howard has said he will direct the first feature and the limited run series that will link the first two features.
I am a Dark Tower nut, having read all the books and the various other short stories, novels and novellas in King’s canon, and I’ve been waiting for something like this for years (while stopping myself from writing my own adaptation, knowing perfectly well it can’t go anywhere). I’m still not convinced that either Howard or Goldsman (whose adaptation of Isaac Asimov‘s classic sci-fi novel I, Robot became the often embarrassingly updated Will Smith vehicle) are right for the material. I was sad when J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof left the project, taking Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman will them, but these things happen.
King’s Dark Tower cycle encompasses most of his major work – in his terrific book On Writing, he even calls Roland of Gilead’s quest to find the Tower and conquer the evil dwelling there his “Jupiter,” a story so large it contains the rest of his various worlds. Indeed, the worlds created in main Dark Tower series overlap into novels like It, The Eyes of the Dragon and his classic novella The Mist (which Frank Darabont adapted and directed, and was one of 2007’s most genuinely underrated films). It’s just a massive story, an epic to rival The Lord of the Rings for sheer size and scope. I’m happy to hear Howard and Goldsman aren’t planning on stuffing seven big novels into three films – at least, not entirely. A TV series is good news, and it sounds like Howard, who is a director I admire, is truly invested in the project. We’ll see how things unfold. Until more news is available, I recommend Darabont’s The Mist as a precursor to how the project ought to be approached – with enough reverence to the material to do it justice, while retaining a ballsy approach to take in the right direction.
Are you a Dark Tower fan? What do you think of Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman’s involvement?