Science Fiction World

The Dark Tower film project, an adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower novel series, is back from the dead after Warner Bros. announced they would provide financing. Universal Pictures pulled out of the project in 2011. The original announcement from Universal suggested there would be feature films as well as two seasons of a television series (to bridge the gap between films). Undoubtedly, if the first film is successful, Warner Bros. will follow the same path. HBO (a sister company of Warner Bros.) is expected to produce the TV series if all goes well.

The Dark Tower is an epic series written by iconic US horror writer Stephen King, a unique blend of fantasy, science fiction, horror and western. The tale of Roland's obsessive quest for The Dark Tower darts between literary genres faster than you can turn a page. It's a momentous, complex tale that could easily fill a dozen feature films and three or four television series. I've just started re-reading the second book, The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three, and they stand up well even after a 20 year break.

Presently there are eight books in the series, The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger (1982), The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three (1987), The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands (1991), The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass (1997), The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla (2003), The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah (2004), The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower (2004) and The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole (only just released in 2012).

Javier Bardem is in talks to play the main character, gunslinger Roland Deschain, and Ron Howard will direct from a screenplay by Akiva Goldsman. Goldsman won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind and also worked on The Da Vinci Code and its sequel, Angels and Demons, with Howard. They are aiming to start filming in the first quarter of 2013.

King said the series was inspired by the poem Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came by Robert Browning and in the 2003 edition of The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger he wrote that The Lord of the Rings, Arthurian Legend, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly were also strong influences.

If filming commences as planned in 2013, I'm guessing we'll see the first film early or late 2014.