Last summer, The Dark Tower came and went at the box office. Unfortunately, the tepid response it received may have doomed plans to turn Stephen King‘s epic novel series into a multi-film franchise. However, there is still hope that The Dark Tower could live on as a television series. But if that happens, it’s going to get a fresh start.
While speaking with Vulture, King indicated that previous plans to tie The Dark Tower TV series to the films have apparently been abandoned. “The TV series they’re developing now, we’ll see what happens with that,” said King. “It would be like a complete reboot, so we’ll just have to see.”
If The Dark Tower television series is now going to be a full reboot, it probably means that we won’t see Idris Elba reprise his role as Roland Deschain in the framing sequence, as it was originally planned. For the better part of the last decade, the TV spinoff was described as a chronicle of Roland’s early years as a Gunslinger, while the potential movies were intended to handle the bulk of the story from the novels.
Ultimately, this could turn out to be for the best. Fans of The Dark Tower novels were frustrated by some of the changes that were made for the movie. It was inevitable that certain characters and subplots would be dropped for the big screen, but if The Dark Tower TV series is free to tell the story at its own pace, it could potentially be a much deeper and more satisfying adaptation. Ideally, the show would downplay the young Roland stories and just start with The Gunslinger before going on from there.
How would you like to see The Dark Tower‘s potential television adaptation play out? Let us know in the comment section below!
Images: Columbia Pictures
Read more about Stephen King’s work!
- A guide to Stephen King’s Lovecraftian gods.
- The first teaser for Castle Rock.
- Stephen King chooses his eight favorite movies.
