The Dark Tower Companion: A Guide to Stephen King’s Epic Fantasy (24 page)
Read The Dark Tower Companion: A Guide to Stephen King’s Epic Fantasy Online
Authors: Bev Vincent
He saw the Marvel graphic novels as the best of all possibilities. They would adapt the series visually the way it was supposed to look, in his opinion. However, they also rekindled interest in a film adaptation. Frank Darabont approached King, but King thought Darabont already had too many other works optioned (including
The Mist
, which hadn't yet been filmed). Darabont underscored his enthusiasm for the Dark Tower by turning David Drayton in
The Mist
into an artist working on a poster for a Dark Tower film.
Real-life movie poster artist Drew Struzan created the painting as a prop for the film. It eventually ended up in Stephen King's office.
The first proposal King considered seriously came from J. J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof, who had come to his attention through the TV series
Lost
. The series creators were King fans, using many references to his work during the show's six-year run. They said that
The Stand
was a major influence on how the series was structured. The Others read
Carrie
at their book club. A lab rabbit with the number eight on its back was drawn from
On Writing
. After King wrote about his admiration for the show, they flew up to Maine to meet with him.
Damon Lindelof, in particular, was a huge fan of the Dark Tower. For nineteen dollars, King gave them a period of exclusivity to see what they could come up with. By late 2009, though, the team had decided they wouldn't be doing an adaptation. In interviews, Abrams said he thought the series was tricky and Lindelof admitted to being intimidated. He was such a big fan of King and the series that he was terrified of screwing the movie up. His reverence for the author got in the way of taking creative license to change things in the series.
It didn't take long for someone else to snap up the film rights. Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment and Akiva Goldsman's Weed Road presented a novel idea for how to adapt the series. Their plan consisted of a trilogy of movies with TV miniseries bridging the films, all featuring the same cast. The TV series would focus on characterization and the films would be action and adventure. They also talked about using elements of the story that wouldn't appear in either the film or the TV series in narrative video games, drawing from both King's books and the graphic novels.
Akiva Goldsman secured the rights and brought the package to Ron Howard and Brian Grazer at Imagine Entertainment. Howard plans to direct. Grazer, King and Goldsman will produce. Their first studio of choice was Universal, where Imagine is based, although Warner Bros. also vied for the project.
King said that he'd never considered this multimedia format for an adaptation before, but he liked it. He was also complimentary of Howard as director, saying that he told honest stories with style and substance without showing off.
The first movie was optimistically scheduled to launch on May 17, 2013. Then came the announcement that Javier Bardem was their pick to play Roland. Bardem didn't accept the role for a while, but indicated that he was
favorably inclined to do so. Howard spent a lot of time with him and reported that Bardem was fascinated by the character and had great instincts for Roland.
Filming was tentatively set to begin in September 2011. However, the deal with Universal started to unravel once the studio reviewed the script. They asked Goldsman for a rewrite to lower the projected budget. Filming was pushed back to February 2012. Howard said in an interview that Goldsman's cuts weren't deep or radical. Producer Brian Grazer was quoted as saying that the revised budget dropped from approximately $140 million to something in the vicinity of $100 million.
In July 2011, Universal decided the project was too costly and risky for them to go forward. This was a blow to the adaptation, but not a fatal one, as Universal's decision allowed Howard and his partners to seek alternate financing.
In March 2012, Warner Bros. confirmed that they were in ongoing discussions to revive the project. The studio bought Goldsman's script and hired him to polish it. In August 2012, they decided not to move forward with the adaptation; however, the very next day reports emerged that Media Rights Capital was in talks to take on the series. There has been no news of any developments since then.
A
N
I
NTERVIEW WITH
R
ON
H
OWARD
The following interview was conducted by phone in March 2012.
Q:Â Â Â When did you first discover the Dark Tower series?
A:Â Â Â Akiva Goldsman began talking to me about the gunslinger as a characterâhe didn't call him Roland in those daysâand the Dark Tower series when we were doing
A Beautiful Mind
. At that point, he said that he had always dreamed of these books becoming movies. I was working hard on
A Beautiful Mind
. I didn't have a chance to pick up the books, but when I eventually did, J.J. [Abrams] was already engaged in developing the project. I continued reading. I read the first three. I really enjoyed them and was kicking myself the entire time that I'd let it get away.
So then, J.J. got so busy and he moved on, and Akiva came back to me and said, “I think there's a possibility of meeting with Stephen King and talking about doing it again.” I said, “Well, I can't be glib about this or fake it. I've got to go ahead and read the
other four.” I was in the middle of something, so it took some time. I revisited the first three, went ahead and read the other four, and I was enthralled and challenged, but also a little frustrated by what I could immediately see we were going to have to leave out. Particularly in the backstory of Eddie and Odetta, that period of her life.
I knew that one of the challenges was going to be making movies for the big screen that would be great broad-appeal action movies that would deal with the journey with the kind of momentum that movies on the big-screen cinema need. I was worried that we would lose the intensity, the coolness, the texture and the humanity of much of the backstory.
One day, I literally was on an elliptical trainer, and I was now reviewing the books by listening to them on audio. It just struck me that so much of that would be great TV. I love what has happened with TV in the last six, seven, eight years. The notion struck me that we could do the biggest ideas in the series on the big screen and we could bundle the more intimate ideas and do that for television. Not only was I excited about the world, the universe and what it had to offer for audiences and for me as a filmmaker, but I also felt that this was a really interesting opportunity to use both mediums to their fullest.
And then it went further. We also began to exploreâwe were
still
realizing how much we were going to have to leave out. I said, instead of creating games that just sort of piggyback on or sort of regurgitate whatever the movie or TV show was, why don't we devise games that actually deal with the narrative threads and some of the twists and turns that we know we're never going to be able to get to, even in three movies and a miniseries. That got to be an exciting idea. It really ultimately is this sort of attempt to try to take advantage of as much of what Stephen created as possible and for fans to know that we love and respect the entire universe. We're going to do everything we can to dramatize that using all the mediums at our disposal.
That's what we presented to Stephen eighteen months ago. Nearly two years. That was the eureka moment for Akiva Goldsman and I when, one day, at Akiva's house, we sat down with all the key narrative points in all the books and even the graphic
novels. We put them all out in index cards on the floor and started moving things around and bundling certain ideas into what we thought could be used for television. Certain ideas which could be collected into movies. We began to believe that it was cohesive and compelling and an interesting approachâand sort of an unexpected approach, but very true to the spirit of the characters and the narrative. When Stephen agreed with that, it was thrilling. It was a great creative day when we landed on the approach and really gratifying that Stephen concurred a hundred percent. And whenever we talk to fans who know the books and we sit and explain our approach, they are across the board excited about it, and very, very supportive of it, even though it departs in certain ways from what you'd call a rigid adaptation. They're novels, and novels are not movies. They're great novels. And, again, Stephen has been fantastic in acknowledging that and being excited about empowering us with his belief that we could go out there and make strong adaptations. Movies, television and even games.
Q:Â Â Â King said he thought the way the script integrated Mid-World with New York City was brilliant.
A:Â Â Â We looked at all of the novels and we're working with it as one giant narrative. We're moving certain ideas from novel six and seven up into the first movie. Ultimately, over the course of what we hope is three or four movies and a miniseriesâand possibly an ongoing series as wellâand the games, to navigate our way around and delve into as many of these areas as we possibly can. He understandsâand is thrilled by the factâthat we're not really necessarily dealing with it all chronologically.
Q:Â Â Â Plus he keeps writing more. The eighth book will be coming out in April.
A:Â Â Â He loves it. He just loves the world. And with good reason. It's fascinating. He feels so comfortable when he's working with those characters in that world, for some reason. And that's why he keeps going back there. There is something very human and relatable to the attitudes of those characters. And it's also kind of comprehensive. You can delve into almost every corner of the human psyche or every emotion of the human heart through what those characters are going through, past and present.
Q:Â Â Â Is there room in your concept to go all the way back to the Mejis days?
A:Â Â Â We haven't talked about that. We certainly hope to suggest that in some way. But, no, that we haven't done. We have hopes that, if we're good enough, down the road, there's great material there. We could go even further. We really didn't go beyond Roland and the
ka-tet
. The first
ka-tet
is part of what we would be dealing with, but we even hope that would all be an origin story television series. Our
Smallville
.
Q:Â Â Â Has anybody ever tried to tie TV and the big screen together like this before?
A:Â Â Â I don't believe anybody really has in a planned way. I think that some version of
Star Wars
has existed in all the mediums. I'm sure that
Star Trek
's that way now, too. I'm not really a gamer, so I don't know what the
Star Trek
games are, but I'm sure they've got them. But to really say, look, here's an epic saga that exists. We don't have to invent, stretch, extrapolate to try to create material for these other mediums. All we're doing is trying to say: where would this best live? It's thrilling and it's also satisfying. And, by the way, we still won't get it all in. It's fascinating and sprawling, and Stephen is the first one to give us license to make creative choices, although, clearly, he has his pets. If we do get down to making it, there are some things that he really wants to see, but he doesn't have to argueâthey're all the ideas that we really want to pack into the films.
Q:Â Â Â There's been a lot of chatter this past week about Warner Bros. Is that all hype, or is there something behind it?
A:Â Â Â There's been something going on for a while, but I'm afraid it was premature to declare it a done deal. There've been serious conversations. I think there are very real intentions, but still some steps to take before we have a start date. The media is so interested in the subject, along with the fans. Every time it gets mentioned, it seems like somebody wants to put a start date on itâor, hell, they want a release date. We got caught with that before a little bit. I think in all our minds we want to do it, but we want to do it the right way, with the right partners. I think we're moving in a really positive direction. All along I've just felt it would happen. My sense is that I think we're onto something that's too rich and interesting to not
ultimately find its way to the audience. I believe that the support will ultimately be there for it.
The project means a lot to Akiva and myself, and a handful of people who put in close to a year focusing on it. I really hope we get to do it, and I have a very good feeling about it.
Q:Â Â Â When you go to a new studio, do you start from the revised script or do you go back to an earlier version before the rewrites you did for Universal?
A:Â Â Â It continues to evolve. He's just beginning to write, so it's hard for me to comment on it much right now. It's not just a matter of reverting. There are some new ideas that we're going to be exploring.
Q:Â Â Â Is Javier Bardem still under consideration? A lot of people were concerned about the color of his eyes and his accent.
A:Â Â Â That was pretty controversial, I know. Now, with scheduling and so forth, it will be starting over. Javier wanted to wear contacts. He's a great actor, and I actually thought the accent was fine because who knows quite what Roland sounds like? What is the accent?
Q:Â Â Â I think King is angling to do the voice of Blaine the Mono.
A:Â Â Â He has mentioned that, and I said I think you'd be a helluva Blaine. I don't think we'll have to audition him. I think we know he'd be a good Blaine.
A
N
I
NTERVIEW WITH
A
KIVA
G
OLDSMAN
The following interview was conducted by phone in late March 2012.