You can’t keep a Dark Tower down.
Originally developed by director Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind) and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (Batman & Robin), the ambitious multi-film series adaptation of Stephen King’s epic fantasy series The Dark Tower was abandoned by Universal Pictures in 2011. The project was free to roam, but when Warner Bros. passed on The Dark Tower in 2012, fans were left to assume that the project was officially dead.
That changed today, when news officially came (via Coming Soon) that Sony Pictures is now producing the Dark Tower motion picture series. A new script for the first film, said to focus on the first book in the series, has been written by Akiva Goldsman and Jeff Pinker (The Amazing Spider-Man 2).
Related: Watch CraveOnline Review Every Stephen King Movie in ‘Kings of Horror’ (Video Series)
The Dark Tower tells the story of the gunslinger Roland Deschain, who is on a quest to find the dark tower of the series’ title. The original series consists of eight novels and a series of prequel comic books. The Dark Tower also contains numerous references to and cameos from other Stephen King novels, including The Stand, ‘Salem’s Lot and It.
Stephen King himself has voiced his support of the new project, calling it “a brilliant and creative approach to my books.“
Then again, Stephen King didn’t like Stanley Kubrick’s approach his book The Shining, so it might behoove his fans to downplay their expectations a little bit.
No director is currently attached to The Dark Tower series, and Sony Pictures have not declared their intentions for a release date. So keep checking back for more updates. The Dark Tower keeps rising, but only because it keeps falling over at one studio after another.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
