No Adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘Dark Tower’ for J.J. Abrams

A frequently commented article around the site is a post I wrote back in September 2008 when the idea of a seven film adaptation of Stephen King’s “Dark Tower” series was floated. The total comments on the article have reached 180 and some of them are long, long, long as it is obvious there is a massive interest in this series. At the time I wrote that article I was just starting the seventh and final book and have obviously completed the whole series since then still believe there is no chance we ever see a live-action seven film series and it seems the current dream of it happening has been shot down.

Speaking with MTV, Abrams said, “The ‘Dark Tower’ thing is tricky. It’s such an important piece of writing. The truth is that Damon and I are not looking at that right now.”

As MTV’s Eric Ditzian points out, this reiterates the point Abrams made when speaking to USA Today back in October saying, “You’ll be hard-pressed to find a huger fan of ‘The Dark Tower’ than me, but that’s probably the reason that I shouldn’t be the one to adapt it,” he revealed. “After working six years on ‘Lost,’ the last thing I want to do is spend the next seven years adapting one of my favorite books of all time. I’m such a massive Stephen King fan that I’m terrified of screwing it up. I’d do anything to see those movies written by someone else. My guess is they will get made because they’re so incredible. But not by me.”

It only makes sense considering the rabid fanbase that would be demanding the filmmakers remain faithful and at the same time the attempt to appeal to general audiences as well. The matter of what happened to Zack Snyder with Watchmen is mentioned as the decisions related to when to remain faithful and when to deviate from the source material would be tough with that much material.

Abrams’s writing partner Damon Lindeloff is quoted from a previous interview saying, “Having seen Zack go through what he went through on Watchmen in terms of saying where can I digress from the material, I just get headaches thinking about changing anything.”

Oh well, you can still keep dreaming. Let your personal dream cast and director be known in the comments. What about Guy Pearce as Roland? That’s something I have always thought after seeing him in The Proposition. My only wish is that if it does get made it isn’t made for TV. I have never been a fan of made-for-TV adaptations of King’s work and this is the last batch of books I would want to see treated in such a manner.

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