Intriguing Details on Amazon's Cancelled Series Adaptation of Stephen King's THE DARK TOWER

Back in early 2018, we learned that Amazon was developing a series based on Stephen King’s epic western fantasy series The Dark Tower. Lots of fans were looking forward to this series, which was being developed by The Walking Dead executive producer Glen Mazzara. After the pilot for the series was shot, though, Amazon ended up passing on the show.

During the development of the series, we learned that it would have started with the Wizard and Glass book and told the story of “how Roland became a gunslinger and his first encounter with the villainous Man in Black.” It was also said that the series will put the focus on “Roland Deschain, a young boy from a long line of ‘gunslingers’, and his ‘ka-tet’ comprised of Cuthbert Allgood, Alain Johns, Ileen Ritter, and Jamie De Curry in addition to his girlfriend, Susan Delgado.”

It was explained that Marten Broadcloak would have served as the series antagonist and his affair with Roland’s mother, Gabrielle, would have factored heavily into the plot. “Her affair incites Roland to pick up his guns in a search for Broadcloak and sets his father, Steven, on a mission to find him. At this time, no offers have been made to talent, but the cast should begin to assemble quickly.”

Well, we’ve got some new information to share with you regarding what the series would have been thanks to Mazzara, who was recently a guest on The Kingcast. He broke down the plans for the first three seasons of the series. When talking about how the failed movie affected the series, he said:

“I was actually thankful that someone made that movie, believe it or not, because, I think that movie...was exactly what I said not to do in my initial pitch. It was about the Dark Tower. My plan was not to mention the Dark Tower, not to explain there was a Dark Tower. I wanted Roland to find the dark tower as he finds it in [the books].

“When we realized that the franchise was not viable, or not going to continue, we decided we could now lay out the entire epic. Now we had a choice: do we go back and start with The Gunslinger? Do you start and tell the story in a linear way and then interrupt that narrative and have this large cutaway in your season 4 or season 5 to Wizard and Glass? That’s a viable option.”

As previously mentioned, they ultimately ended up starting the series off with Wizard and Glass, the story of which is primarily told in flashbacks telling the tragic backstory of the story's main character, Roland Deschain. Mazzara went on to talk about the pilot saying:

“The story of the pilot is basically Roland in the desert. The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed. In this version he’s chasing Marten because Marten was with Gabrielle [Roland’s mother] and he’s vowed his revenge.”

From there, Roland would have also encountered the woman he falls in love with, Susan Delgado, and then Mazzara revealed some of his plans for the first few seasons of the series:

"Season One ended with the death of Susan. In Wizard and Glass very quickly you go from the death of Susan to the death of Gabrielle, (Roland's) mother. I felt that I needed a season to give me real estate so that Gabrielle's death didn't step on Susan's and that it felt like an escalation. Roland fails to save Susan, but he actually shoots and kills his mother. In the book Gabrielle is not really a detailed character in a way that, say, Susan is, or even Rhea is. Gabrielle is really not fleshed out. She just doesn't have as many pages attributed to her. I love that character. The actress we had for her was Elaine Cassidy, a fantastic Irish actress, and she did a really great job."

Mazzara went on to explain some of the things we would have seen in the second and third seasons saying:

"So for Season 2, the war with Farson was building. I was maybe going to use the shapeshifter story (from The Wind Through the Keyhole) as part of season 2 and get to the death of Gabrielle and either the fall of Gilead there or the fall of Gilead would be the season three premiere. Very quickly there would be a last stand at Jericho Hill and by episode 3.03 or 3.04 I was going to have Roland stumble out into the desert, follow him into the desert and then I was going to do a time lapse so that maybe you actually age Roland and switch actors. Then you have a new Roland reset the show at the top of season three, then go into The Gunslinger and by the end of that season go into The Drawing of Three."

Mazzara also explained that while working on the series he had a rule with his writing team “that if something was really, really important that we were going to try to make canon work.” He also said that he was excited to introduce Blaine the Mono and Father Callahan in the series, and he even hoped to do a whole mini-series that focused on Callahan's backstory.

Unfortunately, the series didn’t move forward. It’s a shame because this sounds like it might have been the adaptation of The Dark Tower series that the fans wanted to see! Maybe somewhere down the line another streaming service will pick up the rights and make this happen!