After more than 10 years of turbulent development, the film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower finally made its way to the big screen this weekend, earning a modest $19.5 million at the box office.
The project, directed by Danish helmer Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair), is based on King’s eight-book fantasy series about the world’s last gunslinger (Idris Elba) who is determined to hunt down the Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey) in order to protect the Dark Tower.
It moved from director to director over the years (J.J. Abrams and Ron Howard were both attached to direct at different points), and studio to studio (it was previously at Universal before landing at Sony, with backing from Media Rights Capital). By all accounts, it was a challenging story to crack because it’s based on King’s massive and complicated world that he created over eight books.“It’s just an introduction to the world; it’s not the whole world or all the books,” Sony Motion Picture Group chairman Tom Rothman told THR at the film’s premiere. “The credit goes to MRC, [screenwriter] Akiva [Goldsman] and Nikolaj Arcel — I think they were the ones that cracked it creatively and realized that the way to do it is not to try to eat the entire feast all at once, but to maybe just start with the first course.”
Before the first course was served, however, the filmmakers were already busy preparing the second — which would be served on a smaller screen. The film installment (with a budget of $60 million) is just the first step in what the producers hope can be a massive, cross-platform cinematic and TV universe.
The wheels are already in motion: MRC and Sony Pictures Television Studios recently tapped Glen Mazzara (The Walking Dead) as the showrunner for the potential TV series, as THR reported. Producers MRC and Sony are aiming for a 10- to 13-episode per season series as they search for a cable network or streaming service to call home.
The plan, for now, is to begin production in 2018, though it is technically still in the early development stages.The idea of a cross-platform universe was first hatched more than a decade ago when Howard came on to direct the film with Goldsman attached to write.
“It was Ron Howard’s idea,…
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