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Interview with King. "I always thought it would take more than a single movie, but I didn’t see this solution coming — i.e., several movies and TV series. It was Ron [Howard] and Akiva [Goldsman]‘s idea. Once it was raised, I thought at once it was the solution."
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Ron Howard's Dark Tower adaptation will make history, as he and Universal are bringing together a movie trilogy and tv series based on Stephen King's much loved novels/comics. And now wed have a release date. The first of the trilogy is set for release on Friday, May 17, 2013.
Just a little bit of a wait then! But it could really be worth it. Apparently the plan is to start with the first film in the trilogy and link the following films with a season of Tv episodes between them. This epic undertaking has drawn comparison to Peter Jackson's work on LOTR, and Howard acknowledges and invites it.
“What Peter did was a feat, cinematic history. The approach we’re taking also stands on its own, but it’s driven by the material. I love both, and like what’s going on in TV. With this story, if you dedicated to one medium or another, there’s the horrible risk of cheating material. The scope and scale call for a big screen budget. But if you committed only to films, you’d deny the audience the intimacy and nuance of some of these characters and a lot of cool twists and turns that make for jaw-dropping, compelling television. We’ve put some real time and deep thought into this, and a lot of conversations and analysis from a business standpoint, to get people to believe in this and take this leap with us. I hope audiences respond to it in a way that compels us to keep going after the first year or two of work. It’s fresh territory for me, as a filmmaker.”
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Personally I can't see the project starting on TV. Starting with a movie makes more sense from a generating visibility point of view.
Given their track record the last few years you are most certainly correct. ;D
Howard Talks Dark Tower
Director gives a status update on the ambitious adaptation.
December 14, 2010
by Jim Vejvoda
Director Ron Howard has given a status update on his massive, planned film and TV adaptation of the Stephen King saga, The Dark Tower.
"It is going well, and it has been incredibly stimulating to work on," Howard told Deadline. "It's dense, a great author's life work is not to be taken lightly. It has been utterly fascinating to explore it, and we are having great creative conversations. I've begun tossing and turning at 3 in the morning over it, so that's a good sign."
Howard, screenwriter Akiva Goldsman and producer Brian Grazer -- the Oscar-winning powerhouse trio behind A Beautiful Mind, The Da Vinci Code, and Angels & Demons -- will adapt The Dark Tower, with King, Imagine Entertainment and Weed Road simultaneously developing the property as a TV series. The first season of the TV series is designed to bridge the first and second movies.
Universal has slated the first movie in their Dark Tower film trilogy for a Friday, May 17, 2013 release.
In a chat with The Los Angeles Times about the project, "Howard didn't dodge the topic [of casting Roland] and nodded when names such as Daniel Craig, Hugh Jackman and Jon Hamm were mentioned."
Howard told the paper, "Sure, those are some names and on 'The Dark Tower' fansites they're all about Viggo [Mortensen]."
"We love Roland the Gunslinger but we also like coming back to these worlds and these places. On one hand it is grounded and relatable but on the other hand it's scary and strange and mind-blowing," said Howard. "There's this dream quality to it and the mystery in that is what it's all about – being compelled forward without all the answers."
Howard, screenwriter Akiva Goldsman and producer Brian Grazer will adapt The Dark Tower, with King, Imagine Entertainment and Weed Road simultaneously developing the property as a TV series. The first season of the TV series is designed to bridge the first and second movies. Universal has slated the first movie in their Dark Tower film trilogy for a Friday, May 17, 2013 release.
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http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2010/12/17/the-dark-tower-ron-howards-plans-and-passion-for-stephen-king-epic/
He said: "Filmically, there are tones in this that I have never used before, tones of fantasy menace and elements of horror and real fear.
"And there's the burden, on the characters, of this journey that is really palpable. That's what we need to get on the screen. I think there's something about [the Frank Darabont films] Green Mile or a Shawshank Redemption, the complexity and the ballast of them, those are two [of the Stephen King adaptations] where you do get the horror and suspense that's there on the page.
"We're charging ourselves with the responsibility of getting a real understanding of the material and utilising many of the best aspects of the books and graphic novels."
"there’s this entire world and all of these references and there are the books and the graphic novels and just talking to Stephen and it’s all this ongoing conversation with the material and it’s really exciting. In all of it, he leaves a lot open to interpretation and so it gives a great deal of latitude.”
Director Ron Howard (or as Eddie Murphy used to call him on SNL, "Opie Cunningham") was a guest on The Howard Stern Show, and despite Ron Howard's best efforts he found himself revealing things about his adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower that in other circumstances he wouldn't. Such is the power of Stern!
For fans it might be a little disheartening to learn that at this point the project is only in development, which means that it's probably a long way from filming. In fact, Howard wasn't even guaranteeing that the project would reach screens at all. If it does, however, in addressing the innovative notion of creating a trilogy fo films supplemented by a television series between film entries, he pointed out that the plan calls for a single six-hour miniseries that would air between the release of the first two films. So anyone envisioning a couple of seasons of 22-episodes each should put that out of their mind.
One caller suggested that The Dark Tower would be more suitable for a cable network like HBO or Showtime than one of the networks, Howard, after some initial reluctance, noted that the show would likely air on Syfy or USA -- one of NBC/Universal's cable networks which would allow more freedom than the network itself.
Finally, as to the casting of the role of Roland Deschain, names being bandied about are Lord of the Rings' Viggo Mortensen and No Country For Old Men's Javier Bardem.
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>>> Source + video of Grazer
"I'm working on it. We don't know if it's a 'go' but it is picking up a lot of momentum and a lot of creative momentum. I've had fantastic conversations with Stephen King. Akiva Goldsman, who wrote A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man and Da Vinci Code, is on it as a writer and also a producer and brought the project to me. We're already gathering this interesting team of people who love these genres - fantasy and horror. For me it's creatively very exciting. The possibilities are rich."
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"Right now what we're talking about is a movie and six or eight hours of television to bridge. My plan is to do most of those TV hours, if not all, and certainly the movies." And, in case you thought the roles of the main characters would be recast for the TV series, Howard confirmed that the actors from the films will indeed reprise their roles on the small screen.
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So what does this actually mean? Well, it means he’s probably interested but nothing is official, though it certainly seems Grazer wants him badly. “Javier Bardem, that’s what we’re hoping. We’re in the process of trying to put that together,” Grazer said adding, when asked about other potential contenders, “We’re really just focused on Javier right now.”
The Akiva Goldsman penned and Ron Howard directed project is a big commitment as Stephen King‘s story will be spread out across three films and a television series to pack in the full story. Likely, Bardem is weighing his options as he’s also been circling another major franchise, “James Bond 23,” with Sam Mendes apparently offering him a juicy villain role. Even though Bond is due in 2012 and ‘Dark Tower’ in 2013, we could see the productions overlapping as one ends and the other starts, and that too might cause an issue. So, some big options for Bardem right now and the actor is big on receiving a script first and we’d guess that before he signs anything, he wants something from Goldsman to give a glance at.
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With the ever-changing, ever-flowing news cycle surrounding the goings on in the film industry these days, it gets tougher and tougher to get concerned parties to actually confirm or break news. Nevertheless, our tireless team of intrepid reporters here at MTV News will not give up in trying to push people for info! Like whenever we happen upon super producer Brian Grazer and pump him for details about "The Dark Tower," for example...
The last time we checked in with Grazer, the Roland casting process was moving along, but slowly. When I stopped him while on his way into the Vanity Fair Oscar party last Sunday, solely with the purpose of peppering him about the reported casting of Javier Bardem as the ruthless gunslinger, he seemed pleasantly puzzled by the fact that MTV is so interested in the project.
"'Dark Tower,' Javier Bardem, that's what we're hoping," Grazer said when I asked him for an update. "We're in the process of trying to put that together. Will that make you happy? Will that make MTV happy?"
Yes, I told him. Very happy! But has he officially signed Bardem onto the project?
"He's locked in psychologically," Grazer said. "He really wants to do it, so we're absolutely rooting for him to do it."
When asked to address other potential cast members, Grazer said they're too busy with Bardem.
"We're really just focused on Javier right now," he said.
Grazer went on to say that in addition to the challenges involved with locking in a lead actor, they'll have their hands full trying to roll-out the project across multiple platforms including film, TV and video games.
"It's challenging to capture all of it, the density of it," he said, adding that he's excited to explore all the metaphors involved, and that the first story they're exploring is that of "The Gunslinger."
Bardem, who won the Oscar for his ferocious portrayal of a hit man in No Country For Old Men and who was more recently nominated for Biutiful, is a strong match to play the last living member of a knightly order of gunslingers. Deadline revealed in late January that Bardem had been offered the role of Deschain, who becomes humanity’s last hope to save civilization as he hits the road to find the Dark Tower. Along the way, he encounters characters, good and bad, in a world that has an old West feel.
Bardem's WME reps are putting the finishing touches on the deal, and they are close enough that Howard has begun meeting with other actors to cast the roles around Bardem. It's a complex deal, almost unprecedented, because it calls for Bardem to star in the feature film and the TV component. His deal will also include options for two sequels (the TV program that runs between the second and third films will be a prequel). I'm told it will add up to a career-best payday for Bardem. Howard and Goldsman have told me they see the trilogy as their answer to the Peter Jackson-directed adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. While Middle Earth had a mystical medieval feel, The Dark Tower vibe is one that Goldsman described as “an alternate Americana, one part post-apocalyptic, one part Sergio Leone.”
Bardem, who just wrapped an untitled next feature for Terrence Malick, is also being courted to play a villain opposite Daniel Craig in the next James Bond film that Sam Mendes is prepping. That film is moving forward again, after MGM emerged from bankruptcy. It's expected to land at Sony Pictures for distribution.
Todd Hallowell, Imagine's Erica Huggins and Weed Road's Kerry Foster will be executive producers of The Dark Tower.
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TV, film and comic book writer Mark Verheiden has been tapped to co-write with Akiva Goldsman the NBC TV series The Dark Tower. The project is part of a massive joint deal Universal Pictures and NBC Universal TV Entertainment signed back in September to turn Stephen King’s opus of best-selling novels -- which have sold more than 30 million copies -- into into a feature film trilogy and a TV series, both of them creatively steered by the Oscar-winning team behind A Beautiful Mind and The Da Vinci Code.
Verheiden will executive produce the The Dark Tower series along with Goldsman and his Weed Road Pictures for Universal Media Studios. As previously announced, Ron Howard will direct the series, which is envisioned as a bridge between the first and second movie in the trilogy. This marks Verheiden's return to NBC and UMS following his turn as a supervising producer on Heroes. He also was a writer/co-exec producer on the NBCU series Battlestar Galactica, which ran on Syfy. He most recently served as a co-executive producer of TNT's upcoming sci-fi series Falling Skies, from DreamWorks TV. Verheiden, repped by CAA, Untitled and attorney Peter Nelson, is also in business with DreamWorks on the feature side, developing Quatermain for the studio, as well as Ark for Sony Pictures for producers Neal Moritz and Mike Richardson. He has written nearly 125 comic books including The American, Aliens, Predator, The Phantom, Superman and Superman/Batman.