Director and Writer Locked Down for The Dark Tower

A month after the initial rumor, Sony Pictures have revealed they have officially signed Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair) as the director of The Dark Tower. In addition Arcel recruited Anders Thomas Jensen (Election Day) to help write the film building on some of the script work from Akiva Goldsman and Jeff Pinkner. The current plan is a combination of movies and TV series to tell the entire 8 novel story of Roland Deschain and his quest for The Dark Tower.

WB Dark Tower Deadline, Russell Crowe As Roland

It has been months since we heard anything on the attempt to turn Stephen King's The Dark Tower series into a movie trilogy and two season TV series. Comcast decided the cost and risk was to much for them and passed on it. Warner Bros said they might be depending on what a new more cost effective draft script could be written by Akiva Goldsman. Meanwhile, the lead role of Roland Deschain was Javier Bardem's to have. All this was more six plus months ago.

According to Deadline, the new script has been completed and WB has given itself a two week deadline to make a decision on whether they want to climb The Dark Tower or pass. It also seems that Bardem is no longer in the running with Dark Tower producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer turning to Russell Crowe for the role, who they worked with on A Beautiful Mind. No deals have been made with any actors but Crowe's proven box office record will be much more attractive to WB executives then Bardem will be.

Warner Bros Climbing The Dark Tower?

It seems that The Dark Tower films might get resurrected after being assumed dead. The initial plan was three films paid for and released through Universal Pictures while two limited TV series would run on NBC or a sister network. However parent company Comcast balked at the proposed budget. A lower cost script and plan was attempted but that was also rejected by Comcast executives.

Since then producer Brian Grazer said HBO expressed interested in the TV show aspect of the plan but nothing seemed to being on the movie front. According to Deadline this has no changed as Warner Bros seem to be close to signing a deal to have Ron Howard direct the first film with Akiva Goldsman making a script polish to meet WB's, not Universal's, notes for the film. This would then give the TV series side to HBO.

Budget Cuts, New Ending Might Save The Dark Tower

Several months ago Comcast executives made the decision that Universal would no longer produce The Dark Tower movies and TV series after the costs were deemed too high. The decision was part of a collective series of decisions rolled out over months for all Comcast properties to scale down their budget to levels that the historically tight company find more acceptable. Decisions that will continue as Universal shifts from high budget films to smaller fair while non-reality TV series on NBC, SyFy, USA, etc discover shortened shelf lives with cancellation based on when actor contracts expire (due to corresponding rise in operating costs with renewals, see Eureka as example) rather than how well they are doing in ratings or return on investment.

It is because of this it might actually be good news that Universal took a pass on the series. Especially now that The Dark Tower producing team of Brian Grazer and Ron Howard with writer Akiva Goldsman might have come up with a cheaper draft that costs around $100 million while improving on the ending, according to an interview with Grazer to The Playlist.

“We found a way to cut out $45 million out of the budget without changing the scope and actually giving it a good ending,” Grazer said, suggesting a heavily re-worked approach. “In the $140 million draft, the ending wasn’t quite as satisfying. Now, we’ve got $45 million, $50 million out of the way and a really satisfying ending. It’s gonna get made.”

The decrease in cost might be an effort to get Comcast to bite again or make it easier to get outside financing for making the film. It remains unclear if the team has retained their ambitious plans of a movie, TV series, 2nd movie, TV series, final movie. I suspect the effort will be to make just one movie (thus push for "more satisfying ending") and its success will dictate if the trilogy will be completed. The accompanying TV series will probably be eventually abandoned regardless if the movie does well or not.

In short, there is hope for fans but don't get too excited. Movement on The Dark Tower will probably remain slow for at least another year, assuming it even moves past the script stage.

Update on The Dark Tower

In an interview with Deadline to discuss the 25th Anniversary of their partnership, Brian Grazer and Ron Howard discussed their career together. They also provided an update on The Dark Tower which was recently delayed so the script could be reworked to meet a smaller budget mandated by Universal. Overall no new information was disclosed. They did reiterate that Javier Bardem wants to play Roland but no contract has been signed. No surprise as no point until a script exists. The full article can be found here with the Dark Tower segments below.

DEADLINE: Why does Dark Tower warrant three movies and two TV series in between?
HOWARD: The universe Steve King created is so dimensional and creative. It blends scope, sweep, and adventure with some very personal compelling stories. We could have tried to force all of it into one or two or three movies. It became clear to me that the medium of TV has become so bold and cool, we could use it to our advantage creatively and really fulfill the possibilities of this universe of characters King gave us to work with. We can use the intimacy of television when that’s appropriate, and the scope and scale of the big screen with the bigger fantasy ideas. We discovered elements that would probably never have a home either on the big screen or on TV, but would make fantastic narrative gaming opportunities that won’t rehash the movies or TV, but have its own material borne out of the books and graphic novels. We’ve got gaming designers and there is enthusiasm for that. It’s a way to use all the mediums at our disposal to try to fulfill what’s possible. Universal sees this as an asset that can benefit the company in a lot of different ways.

DEADLINE: You’ve been asked to bring down the budget. By how much?
GRAZER: I’m producing it with Akiva Goldsman, who wrote it to be sensitive to cost and is rewriting it to be more so. Without putting a number on it, the cuts aren’t that deep or that radical.

DEADLINE: Is Javier Bardem set to play the main gunslinger Roland Deschains?
HOWARD: Nobody is pay or play but he has said he wants to do it. We’ve spent a lot of time together. He’s fascinated by the character and has great instincts for Roland. I’m hoping when we go, he’s available and will join us.

Dark Tower Gets a Writer

The Dark Tower production has signed Mark Verheiden to co-write The Dark Tower TV series with Akiva Goldsman. Verheiden's previous writing experience includes writer/co-executive producer of Battlestar Galactica and Falling Skies along with writing comics such as Superman, Aliens and Predator. He adds the sci-fi/fantasy experience that the team of producers does not have a whole lot of but is a necessary ingredient to add to The Dark Tower films. The series while epic in scope, is really a combination of little character moments that will translate well to the television screen but not so well to the movie screen. It will be interesting to see what is shunted to TV, kept for the movie or left unused.