‘Dark Tower’ film or television series seems less and less likely, thank Johnny Depp
Some fans can thank The Lone Ranger bombing at theaters for cementing fears that a western cannot be a big budget blockbuster success.
Ron Howard has toiled long and hard to get a Dark Tower adaptation to the big screen or the boob tube, but project seems lost.
The science fiction website Tor.com listed Ten Reasons why it won’t happen back in July.
“The books are fleshed out with a lot of flashbacks and stories that tell the reader more about the world it takes place in. There’s also a rather good companion comic book series that reveals even more about the history of the characters and of mid-world. But where is the logical starting point? Should a brief history of the gunslingers be included? Should the film start where the books do, at an almost random point in Roland’s journey, or earlier than that so the audience gets a better idea of what’s going on? There are many different ways it could be adapted and each way would produce vastly different results,” explained the writer on how difficult it will be to even know where and how to begin adapting the popular Stephen King opus.
Of course, back in May, according to Deadline, a “mysterious Silicon Valley investor” has offerred to finance the full project that was passed on by Warner Bros. and Universal.
This proposition would involve three major films and a sister TV series to attempt to bring the universe to light.
Sadly, the failure of Disney’s Lone Ranger, with Johnny Depp no less, bombed at the box office and poured more salt into the wounds of studio execs already opposed to pouring a ton of cash into a western.
“…cowboy movies don’t have a great track record. There’s definitely an audience for them, but they pretty much have to be Oscar bait to find that audience (think True Grit and Django Unchained). Otherwise, they’re expensive to produce and don’t have broad audience appeal (think Wild, Wild West and The Lone Ranger). While The Dark Tower goes beyond being simply a Western (it’s a post apocalyptic sci-fi/horror meditation on the nature of stories with a solid dose of high fantasy thrown in), the imagery is very much rooted in Clint Eastwood style westerns,” notes the Tor article.
Crunching the numbers here reveals that the Dark Tower would be a thrill for fans of the novels or comic book adaptations, but the box office risks are just too great.
Just ask Disney.
Check out all Ten Reasons here
[…] Overall the Dark Tower project seems pretty stalled after the failed film The Lone Ranger. More on that conversation or the reason why the film is less and less likely, read the full article here […]
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