NO DARK TOWER MOVIE

Mike Fleming at deadline.com reports that Universal has decided not to proceed with the Dark Tower series of movies and TV mini-series. 

Fleming writes, "Universal has passed on going forward with the project, dealing a huge blow in the plan for Ron Howard to direct Akiva Goldsman's script, with Brian Grazer, Goldsman and the author producing and Javier Bardem starring as gunslinger Roland Deschain."

Of course, the issue is just how big the series is.  Flemming notes that, saying, "Now, the filmmakers will have to find a new backer of what might well be the most ambitious movie project since Bob Shaye allowed Peter Jackson to shoot three installments of The Lord of the Rings back to back."

This isn't really a big surprise, since filming was supposed to start this summer.  Did any of us really believe them when they said that things were still on track, they just needed to adjust the budget?  Tell us what ya know, Mike. . .

Flemming writes, "I'm told that this time, the studio reviewed Goldsman's script for the first film and the first leg of the TV series, and would only commit to the single film. That wasn't good enough for the filmmakers, who had already hired comic book and Heroes and Battlestar Galactica writer/producer Mark Verheiden to co-write the TV component with Goldsman, which was to be made for NBC Universal Television (studio insiders deny that the studio was only willing to make the movie and not the series). I know the filmmakers planned to make it all part of the first shoot while they had the cast in place and the sets erected. I'd heard back in May that Warner Bros--where Goldsman's Weed Road is based and which is fully financing two installments of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit--was a possible landing place for the adaptation of King's 7-novel epic that is that author's answer to Tolkien's LOTR novels. The Dark Tower is about the last living member of a knightly order of gunslingers, with Deschain becoming humanity’s last hope to save civilization as he hits the road to find the Dark Tower. Along the way, he encounters characters, good and bad, in a world that has an old West feel."  http://www.deadline.com/2011/07/universal-wont-scale-stephen-kings-the-dark-tower-studio-declines-to-make-ambitious-trilogy-and-tv-series/

So what's the bottom line?  Why did they drop such a great project?  Flemming thinks it's money.  That's probably right on.  The project would be huge, and if filmed in large chunks (several movies at once) no income would be seen for some time.  Still, I think they're passing up a cash cow!

Ever since Universal decided to trim the budget (with a chainsaw), I've felt uneasy about this.  Who doesn't want to see the project brought to screen?  But if they're going to dumb it down and give us lame special effects, I prefer they just not touch it.  In the end, no matter how much passion Universal might say they have for The Dark Tower, it seems the truth is they don't have a heart for it.  They don't understand it.