At just 19 years old, Stephen King began penning an eight-part “The Dark Tower” series of novels that would take 30 years to finish — and three directors, as many studio changes, and over a decade before it made it to the big screen.
Was it the “tricky” task of adapting 4,250 pages of material that had become so beloved to fans — the obstacle cited by “Lost’s” J.
J. Abrams, who, in 2007, first took a stab at it? Was it the lofty (and costly) ambition of Ron Howard, next director in line, to adapt it concurrently as a television and film series? (Howard is still attached as producer.) According to Oscar-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, who remained onboard after Danish filmmaker Nikolaj Arcel took the helm in 2015, the problem was genre.“This is part why ‘The Dark Tower’ novels are Stephen King’s magnum opus,” explained Goldsman at the film’s New York premiere at MoMA on Monday night. “They are liberal as they skitter across horror, science fiction, family drama, and that is much more acceptable outside of America, interestingly enough. But we like our genres in boxes.”
King’s story — about a mythical tower bridging many worlds, which “the Gunslinger” Roland Deschain (Idris Elba) strives to protect, and archenemy “the Man in Black,” Walter O’Dim (Matthew McConaughey) sets out to destroy — marries fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and Western elements. His main influence was Robert Browning’s 1855 poem “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,” while King also references J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” and Clint Eastwood’s “Man with No Name” character as inspirational.
But is America finally ready for this first film installment, and…
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