Stephen King - “I’m sorry Universal passed, but not really surprised,” he writes in an email. “As a rule, they’ve been about smaller and less risky pix; maybe they feel it would be better to stick with those fast and furious racing boys. I bear them no ill will, and trust Ron Howard to get Roland and his friends before the camera somewhere else. He’s very committed to the project.”
Well, this was gonna be an ambitious project no matter what, but with the weight of names like Stephen King, Ron Howard, and Brian Grazer I am stunned the project hit a snag. If Universal is not gonna put their trust into three solid entertainment contributors like these, then who will then put their trust into? I agree with Mr. King that a company known for pushing silly car movies, like
Fast and the whatever because the model works, so you run it into the ground til people tire of it, is a safe and chicken poo way to run a company.
The intricate plan that they came up with to have
Dark Tower rotate from TV to Film to TV to Film & etc. was a bold concept and never tried before. I was looking forward to seeing how it went and hope that some time soon this project has new life breathed into it.
Plot summary - 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. Politically organized along the lines of a feudal society, it shares technological and social characteristics with the American Old West but is also magical. Many of the magical aspects have vanished from Mid-World, but traces remain as do relics from a technologically advanced 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 it appears to be coming apart at the seams. 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. Sometimes, even the sun 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.