Ah hell… Discordia reigns, maybe? Just a little?
So Variety is saying that the Ron Howard / Akiva Goldsman mega-adaptation of the Dark Tower novels is getting reevaluated by Universal on account of its apparently massive budget. It might even be getting put into turnaround, the Todash-like state where a movie’s production company has the opportunity to either bring it to another studio or bring another studio in to co-finance (which would allow Universal to recoup the costs they've already spent on developing the project). With some recent top-end personnel shake-ups, Universal’s been reassessing a number of big tentpole projects. You’ll recall that del Toro’s At the Mountains of Madness was dropped a couple months ago for fear of its bid budget / R-rating combo.
This news would seem kind of
shocking considering how Javier Bardem was only jussssssst cast as Roland, but
Variety clarifies that the studio's moving ahead like the project’s still going
to happen. I expect it’ll just end up
resulting in a co-financing deal that’ll share some of the risk. Nobody’s
released a budget projection yet, but I figure a trilogy of movies with a TV show season interspersed throughout would take as much change as Lord of
the Rings needed, if not more (and there's no German tax shelter loophole in sight to alleviate costs). Translated exactly,
the books would also be rated R, for sure, so there’s that to consider as well.
Yeah, from experience with following movie news for years, that's totally what it means. Announcing what they did was almost like if Lucas planned all six Star Wars movies out before even seeing one to completion. It's just not feasible.
I think the real concerns are simply recouping costs quickly and the sheer amount of time invested in making three movies and two television series. This is easily the most ambitious project I've ever seen in terms of scope, so they're probably just wary about committing to it without knowing it will do well.
Which is fair, though just slapping Stephen King's name on it will probably put butts in seats.
I actually agree. When I first heard of the Dark Tower movie I was excited. That excitement grew when I heard that Damon Lindolf and Carlton Cuse would write the scripts and JJ Abrams was directing. Damon and Carlton gave Stephen King 19 dollars to make the movie just because SK was a big fan of Lost. But when they announced that they dropped out because it was too big for them to do I got worried. They gave King back the 19 bucks and in an interview JJ had said that he was afraid that he would ruin the books.
It would be astounding if movies were made based on The Dark Tower, but I think G-Man from Comic Vine had mentioned the series would be best suited for an HBO treatment, along the lines of The Walking Dead.
However it comes about, I hope it sees some type of screen in the near future.