On the one hand, I’m thrilled because I’ve always wondered what it’d be like as a movie (not to mention the oft-debated question of who would play Roland) and Ron Howard is directing the first movie.
On the other hand, a LOT of SK stuff makes crappy movies.
On the gripping hand, the stuff from SK that makes good movies is the stuff that’s less horror-based… and The Dark Tower definitely fits that bill.
We’ll have to wait and see if it comes to fruition and what the result looks like.
Well, if you go according to the books, Roland looks exactly like SK himself…but I don’t think SK is that good of an actor, so I doubt that is what they did for the movie.
I’m very happy to see a Dark Tower project that is more than just rumor, and intrigued by the movie/tv series combo simply because no project has been done that way before. I’ll be waiting in anticipation for casting news and every last little image that is released during production, in much the same way I did with the LOTR films.
On the other hand, I am very concerned that this is an NBC/Howard project. NBC (or any of the networks, really) is NOT the right venue for this story. Howard comes across to me as a very “safe” director, and the sort of insane twists and turns in the Dark Tower series are really not in his bailiwick. And, for every A Perfect Mind or Apollo 13 on his resume, there’s a How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Then again, looking at his resume, I didn’t realize he directed Willow, so maybe there is hope.
Akiva Goldsman as writer could be disastrous too… He has written for Fringe, which is a show I love, and he has great work like Cinderella Man and A Beautiful Mind on his resume. But also stinker adaptations like I, Robot , Lost in Space, and I am Legend. And most disturbingly of all… Batman Forever and Batman and Robin (!!!)
I also wonder how casting is going to turn out. Will they be able to land any stars for this sort of mixed media project? We may as well start the speculation, we haven’t had a “Cast The Dark Tower” thread in a long time.
I suppose Ryan Reynolds has grown too big for the part of Eddie, huh? And Alfre Woodard has gotten a little too old for Detta/Odetta/Susannah? … Hmm, then I got nothin’.
Whoa. I don’t know how this is going to work, at all. Are they going to do the whole thing? Just the first book? The first few? Are people going to get lost during The Drawing of the Three? How are the lobstrosities going to work? And Blaine?
I don’t know. I’m thinking this is all better left in reader’s heads, really.
Ryan Reynolds would have been good, wouldn’t he? The only correct answer for Susannah that I will accept is Gina Torres. As for Jake, any tween kid could work. But for some reason I have Aidan Mitchell in my head (he was the youngest kid in the F/X show “The Riches”). But it looks like he’s being cast in the Artemis Fowl movie(s), so he won’t have time.
The lobstrosities I can see - the larger-than-normal-and-super-scary bugs in “The Mist” were excellent. Blaine…I dunno. I’m more worried about the animal head people in the later books, as well as the foolishness of Doctor Doom horsemen with death snitches.
I think if they strip away a lot of the meta-fiction and cross-Kingiverse stuff (especially the 'Salem’s Lot bits), it could be pretty straight forward, yet still epic in scope.
If it was given soon after the 4th book, this announcement would have had me absolutely salivating.
Now, several years after the last book was penned and published, I am much less enthused. There’s far too many things in the last 3 books which weren’t interesting and simply didn’t work, and it’s likely the narrative will start to drag by that point. I’ll still be looking forward to the Drawing in the Desert, the huge mechanical bear, the insane train computer, the various trips to our reality and back, and even Roland as a horny teenager, but I fear the tail end of the tale will just end up leaving a sour taste in my mouth.
This really could end up anywhere on the spectrum. I wouldn’t be surprised by a complete disaster, but the possibility does exist for this to be fantastic. Mixing the movies with TV seasons might solve some of the narrative problems. You can have the movies with the main plot broken up into something like 1+2 / 3+4 / 5+6+7, and throw the side stuff into the TV episodes. Father Callahan’s backstory can be just an episode or two. Same with the SK stuff - have an episode where they meet King. It might work as a one-off episode, and even if it doesn’t it is sort of segregated from the main storyline.
Meh. I loved The Gunslinger. Did any of the sequels ever come close again? I gave up in disgust with The Waste Lands, which seemed like an exercise in trying to make Piers Anthony seem like literature by comparison.
…although I suppose it was mostly the terrible prose that made it unreadable, for me. If they do at least as good of a job with it as they did with The Stand it might be watchable.
Personally, I think they ought to give Lars Von Trier a hand in adapting it, just to be fair. (It might be fun to see an appropriate retaliation for “Needs more mystical anteater!”)
I liked the books, but didn’t care for King writing himself into the storyline. It seemed a bit…narcissistic.
I was looking forward to The Talisman, but it looks like it’s going to be a two-hour movie released in 2012. I don’t think two hours is going to be long enough.
Yeah, it was a little narcissistic, but I think it was more about ol’ Stevie working out his issues regarding the famous accident. Meh, it was interesting enough to read.
If the whole project makes it that far, I’d love to see this get left in. They should cast another actor as King, and have King himself to appear in his customary cameo as another character in the same scene. Just meta enough for me.
ETA: Actually, one better: King should play the driver of the truck who almost killed him/
I loved the story (except the ending), and hope the movie/TV series is good. Will be interested in seeing how it turns out. I agree with others saying it could go either way. I seem to recall that there were two versions of The Stand, one that was horrible and one that was great.
The perfect look for Roland - Lance Reddick. I don’t know if casting a black guy for the role would work or not, but whoever they cast has to have Lance’s “do not fuck with me” look.
I still love Ryan Reynolds for Eddie. I’m having a hard time picturing anyone else in the role.
I would love to see Anton Yelchin play Jake, but I think he’s too old now. He would have been perfect.
