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Warner Bros. in Talks to Make THE DARK TOWER; Ron Howard to Direct; Javier Bardem May Star

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Fans of Stephen King’s post-apocalyptic epic The Dark Tower will be happy to hear that the troubled film adaptation has some new life at a new studio. We have reports that Warner Bros. is close to a deal that would give the go-ahead on the project with Ron Howard directing at least the first film. Javier Bardem has also been mentioned as possibly starring as gunslinger Roland Deschain. After Universal passed on Howard’s script last summer, screenwriter Akiva Goldsman and producer Brian Grazer toyed with the idea of turning the property into a television series and made significant budget cuts to get the project moving. With the TV series set up at HBO, it was up to Howard and Grazer to find a home for the feature. It looks like that’s got some legs now, as Warner Bros. is paying Goldsman to do a polish on his script. While Bardem was previously attached when the picture was at Universal, his involvement going forward will depend on his availability. Projections have the film slated to begin production in early 2013. Hit the jump for more on The Dark Tower.


Deadline reported on the progress of Howard and Grazer’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the property, here’s the synopsis:

In the story, Roland Deschain is the last living member of a knightly order known as gunslingers and the last of the line of “Arthur Eld”, his world’s analogue of King Arthur. The world he lives in is quite different from our own, yet it bears striking similarities to it. Politically organized along the lines of a feudal society, it shares technological and social characteristics with the American Old West but is also magical. While the magical aspects are largely gone from Mid-World, some vestiges of them remain, along with the relics of a highly advanced, but long vanished, society.

Roland’s quest is to find the Dark Tower, a fabled building said to be the nexus of all universes. Roland’s world is said to have “moved on”, and indeed it appears to be coming apart at the seams as mighty nations have been torn apart by war, entire cities and regions vanish without a trace and time does not flow in an orderly fashion. Even the Sun sometimes rises in the north and sets in the east. As the series opens, Roland’s motives, goals and age are unclear, though later installments shed light on these mysteries.

Warner Bros. passes on Stephen King's 'The Dark Tower'

Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Akiva Goldsman's ambitious adaptation of saga would include three movies and two TV mini-series

www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-mov...er-article-1.1141183



Warner Bros. has forgotten the face of its fathers.

The studio has passed on Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Akiva Goldsman’s ambitious proposed adaptation of Stephen King’s saga “The Dark Tower,” described by the author himself as a spaghetti Western meets “Lord of the Rings.”

The package being pitched would have featured three big-budget tentpole movies sandwiching two TV mini-series — an unprecedented and expensive commitment for a studio. Universal had previously passed on the project, putting it in turnaround and giving Warner Brothers a chance to pull the trigger on the saga of Roland the Gunslinger.

Howard was set to direct off Goldsman’s script.

Production house Media Rights Capital, however, has stepped in to the void to take over the project, Deadline.com reported Tuesday. Media Rights is coming off a box office hit with “Ted” and has the Matt Damon sci-fi vehicle “Elysium” in post-production, but “The Dark Tower” would still mark a major leap for the independent film studio.

“The Dark Tower,” told over seven books, follows Roland and a small band of allies beamed in from New York City as they make their way through a dying world decimated by magic and radiation from a nuclear apocalypse in search of the titular citadel.