EW has posted an interview with Ron Howard, which includes some Dark Tower news. Howard says, "“We had to pull back to our September start date due to budget delays and ongoing story development and logistical issues, but Dark Tower is moving forward."
Good to know! He says that they should start in Spring, and then Howard drops this strange news -- " I can’t really say who’ll be in it yet, but Javier Bardem has shown a great deal of interest." A great deal of interest? I thought they had signed him. I guess I thought this was all more cemented than it appears to be.
http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/05/24/ron-howard-dark-tower/
My understanding of how Hollywood deals work is that actors make deals to appear in movies based on the proposed filming dates. If Bardem's initial deal was based on filming beginning this year, and then all of a sudden filming gets delayed until 2012, then his deal would be invalidated. Universal might or might not have to pay him one way or another; that probably depends on how good an agent he's got.
ReplyDeleteThat sort of deal gets done to protect actors from being strung along for months on end while studios twiddle their thumbs trying to decide whether they want to spend money or not. After all, there would be nothing keeping Universal from delaying filming again, until fall 2012, at which point in time Bardem would have been unable to appear in any films for about a year. That can, theoretically, kill an actor's career; so the range of filming dates is an extremely important thing when it comes to locking down actors to appear in movies, especially huge ones like these.
You might recall that Bardem was, at around the same time of his "announcement" as Roland, being heavily rumored to be up for role of the villain in the new James Bond flick ... which will be shooting this fall. In fact, it's entirely possible that a big part of the reason why filming on "The Dark Tower" is being pushed until spring 2012 might be to accommodate appearing in both the 007 film and "The Dark Tower."
That's sheer speculation, of course.
From my perspective -- as a King junkie and a Bond fanatic -- the ideal scenario would be for Bardem to do both, and for both to end up being awesome. Is that asking too much? Nah; gimme, gimme, gimme!
I have been listening to the audio books in the series recently, as I do other things like fix my dinner and practice the commala dance, and I find myself wondering how somethings will be staged. For example, the showdown with Jake, the Ticktock Man, Roland, et all will go like, well, tick-tock or easily. However, the build up the the riddle contest with Blain is very internal, a discussion of the characters interior emotional fears and thoughts. That is less easily staged and depicting the interior landscapes of characters is a common failing to SK adaptations.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I hope they cast Dean Stockwell as the voice of Blain the Mono.