Stephen King's The Dark Tower

apparently the scriptwriter is meant to be lame. Looking forward to book 8 though.

Hmm, don't know about this. It's odd, King's books when turned to film are either absolutely amazing, or truly shocking. There's no middle, decent. It's either really good or really bad, and I can see this being really bad. Hasn't it been under discussion for years? Clint would have been the perfect choice for Roland. Just a bit too old now.

nyarlothothep wrote: »

apparently the scriptwriter is meant to be lame. Looking forward to book 8 though.

Apart from Batman & Robin I wouldn't entirely say Akiva Goldsman is lame. For the most part, he's written good scripts that have been executed terribly. With The Dark Tower series he has great source material to work with too. However, Ron Howard will destroy this. There's no way in hell he can properly capture the gritty feel and epic scope of the novels.

As for an eight novel, would King please let The Dark Tower die? He already made the perfect ending, a filler novel for the mid section of the story with only damage this achievement.

Lu Tze wrote: »

Book 8, what!? Scratch that, just clicked on the link.

I could only ever have imagined Clint Eastwood (in the dirty harry era) playing Roland though, so no sure how enthused i would be about a film, struggling to think of who would suit now?

The character of Roland was somewhat based on Eastwood's Man With No Name/Dirty Harry Persona, similar to how Judge Dredd was influenced by Eastwood, along with a string of other comic book book characters and characters in a hell of a lot of books. I see a lot of the Josey Wales persona in Roland, especially in the way he gets attachments to other characters, and how their fate affects him.



For some reason I think Hugh Jackman could play the role of Roland nowadays. I have always thought him right to play the role of Eastwood if there was a film about Eastwood. He shares many facial similarites to a younger Eastwood.

i must actually finish this series, i got as far as book 5 and meant to pick up the last 2

I'd agree with Viggo and maybe Jackman, what about Guy Pearce? He was great in The Proposition!

Good call on Guy Pearce. No way to Hugh Jackman. It's hard to look passed Viggo Mortensen for the role. In my opinion he seems to embody everything that Roland is. Maybe I phrased that wrong, I see him as being easily able to portray Roland. Although, if they're planning a t.v and film adaptation then it's hard to see actors of that scale signing on for the role. It would take years to complete. So Roland will most likely be played by either a complete unknown or a t.v actor.
As for the source material, I both love and loathe Stephen King. I love how he approaches the work, and his attitude towards writing . But a lot of the time I loathe what he writes or the direction he takes a story. The first and fourth installments of this series are among the best things I have ever read. The fourth one was so good that I just took a break from finishing the series because I knew that the fifth would just disappoint.
But lets be serious, Ron Howard is, at best, going to give us a serviceable movie, not great but not terrible. Just meh. Or just give us a large scale turd. Plus a whole lot of stuff is going to be chopped and changed.
But don't worry, there's a fantastic chance that this will never actually happen at all. A lot of people have tried, and failed, to bring to the screen.

Strange how crap directors get their hands on franchises with such potential, MC G with Terminator and Ron Howard with DT? I would be more reassured if it were in the hands of Rodriguez, Aranofsky etc. The TV series idea sounds lame, unless its not padded out with crap to keep it going, there is a definate story thread to follow and any extraneous sub plots and cheap sets to save time and money aren't going to do DT justice. Its epic in scale, a trilogy with the 5th book essentially excluded or truncated, as nothing much happens in it, with the 6th and 7th merged together would be much better. No.1 and 2 could constitute the first film, 3 and 4, for the second and 6,7 with a small bit of 5 for the third.

Deleted User wrote: »

Don't think they should bother adapting this to be honest. But I reckon Ciaran Hinds from HBO's Rome would be good as Roland.

I like that actor but as roland ? i dunno roland would be meant to have the classic western accent ,clint eastwood type accent really . Could he pull it off , and does he really have the rugged cowboy type look?

Im not goin to diss ron howard , i think he has the talent to make excellent films , but to convert this into a excellent trilogy it will take passion and will require for him to immerse himself in this world for years and unless hes a huge fan of the series i cant see him doing that.
Hopefully we get more news soon!!

Ya guy pearce could pull it off , it will be hard to get actors to sign away their life for a few years though.

nedtheshed wrote: »

Interesting call on Guy Pearce.Defo a great actor - aside from The Proposition he was immense in Memento and LA Confidential but IMO he is too good looking to play a grizzled charector like Roland

I don't know if he could be considered too good looking. He only had a small role in The Road, and looked well grizzled, but that may have been because he was missing several teeth if my memory serves me.
Viggo seems a little too obvious, no problems with that though

I feel I should admit that I've only read the first two books

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

Viggo Mortensen

Exactly who came to my mind!

Actually, Josh Brolin hasn't been mentioned at all...worth a shout too!