The Dark Tower TV Series Gets TWD Showrunner

One time The Walking Dead show runner Glen Mazzara has been hired to as show runner of The Dark Tower TV series. The series is expected to focus on the back story of Roland Deschain which was covered in the Wizard and Glass novel along with most of Marvel's comics around the series. Idris Elba is signed on for the series but I doubt in a major role but probably more to introduce the series since most of the story is Deschain as a teenager. The hiring seems to be a show of confidence from Sony in light of the overwhelmingly bad reviews for the movie which best be summed up as overly simplified and bland.

The Dark Tower Easter Egg TV Spot

Below is a new TV spot for The Dark Tower that continues to show nothing about the movie but indicates it will be filled with easter eggs from other Stephen King books and movies. So far the campaign for the movie is pretty bad, basically going "did you like all that other Stephen King stuff? If you do then you might like this movie! Look the hero does bad ass things with an old fashioned gun!" Hopefully they will up their game this week.

Dark Tower Magnum Opus Featurette

Here is a new featurette for The Dark Tower. Has a few seconds of new scenes.

The Dark Tower Clocks in at 95 Minutes

It looks like the group behind The Dark Tower movie really cut a ton of chaff from The Dark Tower books as the movie will come in at a brisk 95 minutes. Part of that could be because a significant portion of the movie is based the Gunslinger which is the shortest book in the series by far. More then likely they just went with the through line of good guy vs bad guy and cut everything else around that. Director Nikolaj Arcel later commented on the length:

“The good news here…the reason why many fans are worried about the run time is that they think we are trying to do everything in this film. Which we are not. This is ideally the first film. This is an introduction to the world and the characters. It’s not meant to be all the novels and we’re just trying to cram everything in there. So that’s one thing. And the script was really lean and tight. When I got on board, the script was very short, very lean. That’s one of the things that attracted me to it. I said ‘This is smart.’ You start with a lean, mean story and you don’t try to cram everything in there. You just build the basic ideas. And if people enjoy it and if they like this world and these characters, we can start expanding.”

The Dark Tower International Trailer #2

Maybe I am being paranoid but between the US trailers and now this international trailer, it seems all the same stuff is being shown over and over. I am really hoping that is because they are saving the best stuff for the movie and not because this is the best stuff. Considering its a new franchise if its the former then that is some fantastic restraint on the Dark Tower marketing team and if the latter then "uh oh" comes to mind. Guess we will find out on August 17.

Introduction to the Dark Tower Featurette

Below is a kind of brief "Intro to The Dark Tower" video that covers the basics about the characters of Roland Deschain (the Gunslinger), the Man in Black, and the Dark Tower itself with the actors and Stephen King briefly talking about them.

Three The Dark Tower TV Spots

Below are three new (and first) TV spots for The Dark Tower that begin to show off the movie. Many of the scenes are recycled from the trailer but there is some new stuff. Movie hits theaters on August 4.

Two New The Dark Tower Posters, Still

Two new posters and a still from The Dark Tower has been posted online. The posters show the two leads in costume doing the poster pose type thing. Images below, click to make larger.

The Dark Tower Official Trailer #1

Here is the first official trailer for The Dark Tower, based on Stephen King's epic saga. For the die hard fans, remember that part of the approach to this movie is it takes place after the end of the final novel in The Dark Tower series allowing the movie to go in directions that books never did. The movie hits theaters on August 4. If need to play catch-up, click here for a quickie FAQ about The Dark Tower.

The Dark Tower Release Delayed A Week

The Dark Tower is getting another delay as the studio has decided to move the movie's release date from July 28 to August 4. Columbia swapped its date with The Emoji Movie so that the movie can get more screen time for younger viewers before school starts. Since The Dark Tower skews older and releasing on tale end of summer movie season, the move will probably have no real effect on box office gains as that number will rely entirely on how successful the marketing campaign is for the movie since the average movie goer has likely never hard of The Dark Tower be it in book form or otherwise.

Description of First Footage of The Dark Tower

In Las Vegas, the annual studio and theater owner meeting called CinemaCon is being held. It is basically a meeting of the extremely wealthy for a week long party. The "work" part is watching the studios sales pitch their summer movies hoping to encourage access to more screens whenever possible for what they hope will be massive opening weekends. As a result the theater execs get feted with early footage, entire movies, and celebs meet and greets. The events are closed to the public and some of the press are allowed but since its for summer movies no recordings are allowed and the studios rarely release the footage to the public. The Dark Tower was one such movie to do its pitch. Below is the description of the footage according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The footage opens with a look at a door frame standing free in the middle of a barren landscape. It then it cuts to Roland in the desert as the famous opening line to King's The Gunslinger, the first volume in the series, is displayed on screen: "The Man in Black fled across the Desert, and the Gunslinger followed.” The footage gives a strong idea of just what The Man in Black is capable of, and it's scarily creepy. Roland and The Man in Black then square off, with Roland telling the villain, "I do not kill with my gun, I kill with my heart." He fires at The Man in Black, who catches the bullet from behind his back.

The footage then cuts to the young boy Jake, who lives in New York but has dreams of Roland and a Dark Tower that must stay standing or else billions will die. Jake's therapist tried to tell him it's a dream, but Jake doesn't believe it. Soon, he is shown exploring an abandoned building, where he discovers a portal that takes him to Roland's world.

Soon, he presents Roland with one of the drawings the boy made of him from his dreams, and Roland explains that as long as The Man in Black is out there, the Tower will fall and Hell will follow.

There are slow-mo shots, including a big fight between the Gunslinger and The Man in Black, as well as an extended look at Roland's prowess with his guns: when Jake is kidnapped, Roland shoots the man who did it from hundreds of yards away, simply by listening to where the bad guy is.

The description is light on details so not particularly spoilerish. However if you want a spoiler and opinion filled description of the same footage head over to AICN. The main takeaway is while the novels themselves had a very light sci-fi touch mostly by indicating that Roland's Western-like present with early 1800s tech was built on the long ago destruction (likely nuclear) of an advanced society (circa the 21st century as imagined in the 1980s), that formula has been flipped by the movie. The emphasis seemed to be on the sci-fi elements with the Western part being retained only via the Gunslinger himself. Of course this is based on just a short snippet so for die hard fans it might be a cause of concern but best to take a wait and see approach.

New The Dark Tower Poster and Plot Synopsis

It has been awhile since had any information to update this blog with. The drought has at least temporarily ended as a new poster for The Dark Tower has been revealed along with a story synopsis. Interesting choice to show the upside streets of New York over Mid-World. Plot synopsis:

Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor) is a young 11-year-old adventure seeker who discovers clues about another dimension called Mid-World. Upon following the mystery, he is spirited away to Mid-World where he encounters the lone frontiersman knight Roland Deschain (Idris Elba), who is on a quest to reach the ‘Dark Tower’ that resides in End-World and reach the nexus point between time and space that he hopes will save Mid-World from extinction. But with various monsters and a vicious sorcerer named Walter Padick (Matthew McConaughey) hot on their trail, the unlikely duo find that their quest may be difficult to complete.