I was crestfallen but relieved when Universal dropped Ron Howard’s film and television adaptation of The Dark Tower. I still wanted the project to happen, but it became clear, with the noose ever tightening around the project’s budget, that it would be in serious danger of losing the epic scale of the novels. Now, Warner Bros. is currently in negotiations to acquire the project, still with Ron Howard attached to direct but possibly not with Javier Bardem as Roland the Gunslinger. The real silver lining here is that, if the project gets acquired by WB and actually goes into production (miracle of miracles), the television component of the series would be on HBO. Fellow Tower fans are going a little ape poopy over that prospect, because after the first season of Game of Thrones, all of us stood up and said, “Motherf***er, that’s what WE want, but with guns instead of fancy swords!”
I’m mostly hoping that if WB gets this, they fire Akiva Goldsman. The man does a solid episode of Fringe, but his film work has been vomitous of late.
[Via Deadline]
