Javier Bardem to play Roland Deschain in film adaptation of ‘The Dark Tower’
UPDATE: Bardem is officially signed onto the project per the NY Post
The New York Post quotes a source as saying: “Bardem has signed on to the first movie and the miniseries, but the intention is that he will star in all three movies and each of the TV series.
“It’s an enormous deal for any actor, but Bardem was always the first choice.”
The Old West-inspired fantasy epic sees “Gunslinger” Deschain on a journey to find the mythical Dark Tower, with the hope of saving civilization.
Deadline:
After Javier Bardem’s terrifying Oscar-winning turn as the assassin in No Country For Old Men, is there any doubt he’d fit as the gunslinger Roland Deschain in The Dark Tower, the mammoth adaptation of the Stephen King 7-novel series that’ll span three movies and a limited run TV series in between?
I’m told that Bardem has officially been offered the lead role by director Ron Howard and Universal Pictures. While formal negotiations haven’t yet begun, there’s a high level of enthusiasm internally that they’ve got their cowboy. Akiva Goldsman has scripted the first movie, and will write the TV component as well. Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer is producing with Goldsman and the author. Universal is financing and distributing the films, and NBC Universal Television Entertainment is backing the TV component, which will either be a limited run series or a miniseries.
It has been a heady week for Bardem. He received a Best Actor nomination for his performance as a terminally ill street hustler in the Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu-directed Biutiful, and Bardem and Penelope Cruz just welcomed their first son into the world. Since Deadline first revealed that King, Goldsman, Howard and Grazer were joining forces on the ambitious project that would tell the story on multiple platforms, speculation has been rampant over who’d play the lead role. Bardem has been mentioned, as has Viggo Mortensen and Christian Bale. Deschain is the last living member of a knightly order of gunslingers, and humanity’s last hope to save a civilization that will fall unless he finds the Dark Tower. At the time, Howard and Goldsman told me they saw the trilogy as their answer to the Peter Jackson-directed adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Instead of Middle Earth, the venue has an old West feel, which Goldsman described at the time as “an alternate Americana, one part post-apocalyptic, one part Sergio Leone.”
Bardem just wrapped the untitled next feature by Terrence Malick
