Dark Tower: the film series

It was recently announced that Ron Howard would be producing and/or directing a Dark Tower film/television series. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Are Howard and Akiva Goldsman up to the task? Who should be in the cast? What changes will have to be made to make it work? And how will they manage both a television series and a trilogy of films?

Here are some musings of mine:

1. The casting of Jake Chambers will be a great challenge, as it will take a few years to commit the entire quest to film, but Jake doesn't age that much in the story. He appears to be the same pre-pubescent boy at the end of the story that he was at the beginning. If they don't recast him for every film, they'll have to allow him to age some, and possibly change his starting age to allow for it.

2. The Dark Tower series ties together many other Stephen King novels into a single continuity. This creates two possible problems: A) How to make the series work as a stand alone story when the books contain many cross-references. For example, it would be difficult in the final film to

Spoiler

make direct reference to events in Insomnia

, a book many viewers may not have read, and which has never been filmed. Another example: Pere Callahan makes direct reference to his role in Salem's Lot, which has been filmed twice, but neither version was entirely faithful to his character. Following closely on those coattails, B) How to cast roles that are recurring characters from King's other works, who have already appeared in other films. These include: Jamey Sheridan, who played Randall Flagg in The Stand; James Cromwell, who played Father Callahan in Salem's Lot (his predecessor in the 1979 version is dead); Anthony Hopkins, who played Ted Brautigan in Hearts in Atlantis; and Michael Flores, who played Dinky Earnshaw in the "dollar baby" adaptation of Everything's Eventual. Having these actors reprise their roles might help to tie the world of Stephen King films together, but that could also works against the films, if Howard wants them to work as stand-alone films.

3. Who should play

Spoiler

Stephen King

. The man himself could, at least in his older years. But he's a bit young to play the younger version. I think

Spoiler

Joe Hill

might be a good choice.

4. Who should play the members of the ka-tet? I like the idea of Rosario Dawson playing Susannah. It's hard for me to think of anyone for the other parts. Anyone I could name for Jake will quickly be too old. Clint Eastwood would be a great Roland, but he's getting too old for it. Emile Hirsch is a possibility for Eddie.

 

Ignore all previous versions. Make this series, then afterward make good, accurate, versions of the other stories as Prequels!

 

Was browsing IGN.com when I saw an article about the Films and a tv series. Here is the [link=http://tv.ign.com/articles/111/1119037p1.html]link[/link].

Part of me is interested, but it will have to be done really well. Here is hoping that they get some good people working on the whole thing that will respect the original series and make it come to life in the big and small screens.

 

I?m getting a bit confused by how they are planning to spread the story out, taking into consideration that they are saying they want to make a complete version of the Dark Tower. Season 2 of the TV series will according to them be about young Roland. This makes it sound like season 2 will only be based on book 4 "Wizard and Glass". What I don?t get is that they plan to only make one movie after that to wrap everything up, I?m not sure one movie could cover book 7 in a good way, much less books 5,6 and 7.

What would be much more sensible in my opinion would be to add a 3 season on TV and play it out like this:

Movie 1 - Book 1

Season 1 - Book 2 and 3

Season 2 - Book 4

Movie 2 - Book 5

Season 3 - Book 6 and part 1 and 2 of book 7

Movie 3 - Part 3, 4 and 5 of book 7.