The Dark Tower movie was a complete disaster, despite boasting an impressive cast led by Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey. Despite serving as a loose sequel to Stephen King's epic series of novels, it completely dropped the ball, but there was some excitement when it was revealed that The Walking Dead's Glen Mazzara had boarded a small screen version as showrunner.
Unfortunately, Amazon ultimately decided not to move forward with that, but the executive producer has now shed some light on the direction the first few seasons were supposed to take.
In an interview with The Kingcast (via Screen Rant), he explained that he would have started by adapting the events of the fourth book, Wizard and Glass, heading back to The Gunglinger's youth before picking up with him in that desolate future down the line. "Season one ended with the death of Susan. In Wizard and Glass very quickly you go from the death of Susan to the death of Gabrielle, [Deschain's] mother. I felt that I needed a season to give me real estate so that Gabrielle's death didn't step on Susan's and that it felt like an escalation."
Apparently, season two would have then touched on material not in the books, to flesh out some of the moments King only glossed over. "For season two, the war with Farson was building. I was maybe going to use the shapeshifter story as part of season 2 and get to the death of Gabrielle and either the fall of Gilead there or the fall of Gilead would be the season 3 premiere."
"Very quickly there would be a last stand at Jericho Hill and by episode three or four of season 3 I was going to have Roland stumble out into the desert, follow him into the desert and then I was going to do a timelapse so that maybe you actually age Roland and switch actors," he continued. "Then you have a new Roland reset the show at the top of season three, then go into The Gunslinger (Book one) and by the end of that season go into The Drawing of The Three (Book 2)."
For fans of The Dark Tower, this should all sound pretty perfect, and it's a shame Amazon chose not to move forward with the series. The fact it was quite a slow burn probably didn't help matters, of course, and there's been no word on it potentially finding another home down the line.
Are you guys disappointed the show didn't end up coming to fruition?