Sony seeks the Dark Tower
By: Michael | #Akiva Goldsman #Ron Howard #Sony
We have an interesting development on the Dark Tower movie adaptation; Sony have just announced their intent to team up with MRC to finance the movie. Only time will tell if this has any legs to it, but it does look very interesting, and possibly gives us confidence that Sony will see it through.
What’s make Sony’s involvement so interesting is that chairman Tom Rothman was hired to find a global franchise they can get behind to get them on a par with studios like Disney, with their Star Wars and Marvel series, and Paramount with their Transformers run of movies and spinoffs.
This all makes for very interesting news in regards to the Dark Tower because if Sony/MRC are planning to compete on that level, then they’ll need to put a lot of funding and effort to making it into a long running franchise. Howard’s original plan of several movies plus a TV series must still be on the cards.
But what of Ron Howard?
“There are few projects out there that compare with the scope, vision, complex characters and fully drawn world that Stephen King has created with The Dark Tower. I am a giant fan. And, as Stephen himself does, we love the direction that Akiva and Jeff have taken. This is a great opportunity for a director to put his or her stamp on a cool global franchise.” — Tom Rothman
There’s no mention of Howard in that, and the last sentence, “…great opportunity for a director to put his or her stamp on a cool global franchise.” points to a lack in Howard’s involvement. Akiva Goldsman is however still involved, as mentioned in Deadline’s exclusive, his Weed Road production company will be making the movie.
Goldman has also done a complete rewrite on the script for the initial movie, The Gunslinger, and in the process teamed up with Jeff Pinkner (Alias, Lost and more recently, The Amazing Spider-Man 2), with the re-imagined story focusing on Roland and Jake’s relationship — which is really the core of the first book anyway. Apparently Stephen King will also be on board, in a “producing capacity”.
It’s been 2 years since MRC announced their interest in the franchise, and 8 years since King originally sold the rights to J. J. Abrams.
Like Rolands’, our journey is turning out to be a long one. But is this the final step to seeing him on screen?
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