Amazon's Adaptation of Stephen King's THE DARK TOWER is Still Alive and Well
A few months ago it was announced that Amazon would be developing a series adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower. We haven't heard anything about the project since then, but according to Amazon Studios president Jennifer Salke, the series is alive and well! She tells Deadline:
"Those are scripts that I haven’t gotten yet. I’ll be seeing those, that material, in the coming weeks. None of those things are dead. They’re very much alive."
If you weren't a fan of the movie, I wouldn't be worried. I'm pretty confident that Amazon will do some great things with the series. Stephen King previously explained that the series would be a complete reboot. Even though I'm one of the few that actually enjoyed the film, I'm totally ok with a completely new adaptation.
When previously talking about what the series would entail, the director of the film, Nikolaj Arcel, who was helping develop the series said that the show will dive back into the books. Specifically, Wizard and Glass and The Gunslinger.
"It’s being written. I was part of writing the pilot, like the first season ideas and the pilot and the second episode. It’s gonna be awesome. What was exciting about that, whereas with the film, we were really trying to create an introduction and make a standalone film that could sort of live in itself, but what was also exciting, working on the TV show at the same time, is that is totally canon."
He went on to explain:
"We’re going back in the past. It’s very, very closely adhering to the 'Wizard and Glass' novel and parts of 'The Gunslinger' novel. That was exciting to be even more like, 'Okay, now we’re going to be able to even lift lines directly, or like [write] characters exactly as they are. Which, as a fan, was exciting in a different way."
I have no idea if Arcel is even involved anymore, but it was announced at one point that The Walking Dead showrunner Glen Mazzara might be the showrunner. Rebooting The Dark Tower as a series seems to be the best direction to go at this point.
In the end, it sounds like the series will stand on its own apart from the movie. So, if this is the case, this should make fans who didn't like the movie happy.
I just hope that the creative team really dives deep into the books and pulls out the best and weirdest stuff from the stories. It's the crazy weird stuff that helped make the books so great. I loved all that far-out stuff that King included! Some of those things include a cyborg bear, Billy-Bumblers, Lobster Monsters called Lobstrosities, Man Jesus, and more.
What do you hope to see from Amazon's Dark Tower series?