All things must follow the beam…
Could we be on the verge of a third attempt to bring to the screen Stephen King’s magnum opus, The Dark Tower? Well, if scare meister Mike Flanagan has anything to say about it, we could be.
So, King’s massive story – which brings together all his books, movies, comics etc – which follows the last Gunslinger, Roland Deschain on his sacred journey to save all of reality by saving The Dark Tower, has had eight novels, a series of Marvel comics/graphic novels, a bitterly disappointing movie in 2017 (which I’m not getting into here because I have voiced my opinions on what worked and what didn’t many, many times) and a promising but canceled before it got past a pilot TV series at Amazon in 2019 (here) which aimed to correct all the mistakes the movie made but it is still sitting there, waiting to be brought to the screen properly.
With The Haunting, Midnight Mass and Midnight Club under his belt, not to mention Stephen King’s own Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep, Flanagan is itching to bring Roland, his Ka-Tet and the Tower to the screen.
Flanagan revealed in 2020 that The Dark Tower would be his dream project (here), saying: “The Dark Tower is forever going to be the story I wish I could tell. That would be the Holy Grail. I mean, talk about an adaptation challenge.
The Walking Dead’s Glen Mazzara breaks down what The Dark Tower Amazon series would have been
“So many very talented people have poured so much time and heart and soul and blood, sweat and tears trying to crack that… That for me would be the one. I don’t know how that would happen, or if it could happen. That property, it’s daunting. Just to think about even taking first steps toward it.”
With the release of The Midnight Club, Flanagan is still talking about The Dark Tower being “1000% a dream project” and that he’s pushing for it, even though he knows it could be very, very difficult to make happen as it’s a “development and rights nightmare” – the third book alone has story and character elements that are lifted from Marvel and Harry Potter, so you can see why this might be an issue.
However, with his reputation now placing him as one of the biggest names in modern horror, Flanagan is not giving up on trying to get on the path to the Tower, saying they’re “going to keep pushing to try and make it happen until someone stops them”.
So, if you read The Dark Tower, you’ll know how epic this tale is, dwarfing Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Harry Potter, and you’ll know how important the story is to King, the fans and all of reality and, with the two failed efforts so far, I can’t help feeling that Roland and his Ka-Tet are trying to get to the Tower one last time and this time the final story wants told on a whole new medium… it’s coming, I know it is.
Long days and pleasant nights, Gunslinger.
Source: JoBlo.com
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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