JJ Abrams Making The Dark Tower

I am a big fan of stephen king in general and i for one love the dark tower series more than any other book he has wrote, i have been hoping they would make his books into a movie, but they have to do it justice, they can ruin it just as easily as they make it, but i feel that as long as stephen king can have say in what goes on and who plays that this movie can come out good. I just hope that stephen king gives aproval of this movie when and if it does get made.

Play Donnybrook.........Dream Marvelous

I am currently reading "The Dark Tower".I am on book 7 now.I guess I should say That I too love it.It would make a wonderful series.It could only be done justice in a series anything else wouldn't come close to doing it justice-of course I prefer a series of movies like "The Stand"-loved that one too.However, I believe this one would be the absolute best.It is now march, 5th 2008.I hope I want have to wait much longer.Oh and please put it out on dvd.

I also agree that this movie and/or miniseries will NOT work if you show Roland's backstory first. Roland has to have the air of mystery and coldness at the start of the story and needs to become more open as the story goes along. The audience should get to know him as Susannah, Eddie and Jake get to know him.

I think the telling of the Gunslingers past is condensible, that one night that lasts a whole book can be told with a voice over and a long sequence of cuts and flashbacks. For example, do we really need to see the whole sequence where the Gunslingers original Ka-Tet screws with the Big Coffin Hunters? No, lets just see 5 seconds of them all in the bar with a sequence of putting guns to each others heads. The visuals can explain a lot. As long as we know about Susan DelGado, the Wizards Rainbow and Reba, all will be well and all will be well and all manner o' things be well.

There will have to be some SERIOUS cutting down of each book to make the whole thing into a miniseries or a series of movies, and of course with the latter option there's always the chance of the first one flopping horribly and the creators never being able to finish the series, a la "please god, don't let king die before he finishes the books" I'd be praying "please newline/universal/whoever, market the living hell out of this so it doesn't PAN at the box office".

Just my two cents.

In regards to doing the back story first. however Roland remaining enigmatic throughout most of the series is integral. We learn about Roland as Eddie, Susannah, and Jake do and thats the way it should be. If we knew his past it would remove so much of his mystique and also cue you into his actions and reason behind much earlier than intended. I do however agree that books 6 and 7 need to be trimmed down quite a bit, leaving only the most important parts. Furthermore, I honestly don't believe that doing TDT in movie form would be nearly enough to reveal the wonder that is this story.
Often times, as with the later movies in the Harry Potter series, the books are being so consolidated to fit into a 2 1/2 movie that they lack the compostion of the original story. HBO'S Rome showed us that a T.V. series now has the capability to have vast amounts of money spent on sets and wardrobe without losing anything with either the story or the acting. If The Dark Tower is to be done properly it is this avenue that Abrams should take to do the story justice. Either way it will be interesting to see how things unfold. Long days and pleasant nights.

in response to wisemo, to do the storyline that way would be too far off from the original concept of the dark tower as a series, Alain must die at the hands of his trusted friends because that is an integral part of the backstory of Roland, it would be like changing it so that Rhea of the Coos had killed his mother rather than him, think about this, book 4 was put *as* book 4 because it is only after having his trailmates Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and Oy join him that he begins to have the internal conflict with his past, worrying that even though he loves them dearly he knows he will walk over them at their moment of death to continue his quest for the tower..as he did with Susan, Cuthbert, and almost all those who had ever walked his path with him..imho the only way the dark tower could work as a movie series would be to do it the same way as they have been with harry potter, 1 movie per book in order, the first beginning and the last ending with a dissolve on the desert sun, proving once and for all that no matter what we do, Ka is a wheel, and rolls as it will...

White over Red, thus Gan wills forever

If the shows going to work, then the back story'll have to come later in the seires to keep people who know the books and those who don't hooked. Ya' don't want to give up too much too early. I kinda think it sucks that King told the guys that did Spawn for HBO that he doesn't want to go "dark animation" with it.

The only way to do the film is like this. Start from the 4th books back story, start the movie out with the hanging of the chef, quickly leading to Rolands test of man hood, the coffin hunter story, then lead a battle montage up to the final battle where Cuthburt and Alliam die, and for god sakes let have Allian go out in the final battle instead of shot by Roland and Cuthburt, give him that respect. End movie 1 there. The next movie starts out as the gunslinger. The man in black fled across the desert and the gunlinger followed. End this movie with the merger of detta and odetta on the beach. So books 1and2. Start the 3rd movie out with Mir that big bastard bear, and end the movie with the show down with the werewolf robots. So books 3 and 5. Forgot book 4 as it was only a set up to tell Rolands back tail, the only thing important thing is the wizards rainbows that can be incorparated from book 5 and into movie 1. Finally the last movie is books 6-7. Because there is so much bs in these books, you really just cut them down to the action. Then film all sorts of scenes from the book and make 5 differnt DVD's realeases for fans of the book with these more boring scenes that fans of the serious wiould still like.

Thanks for commenting Kris, hope you do it more.

Even 3 long movie would really be impossible I think. If they're making a movie out of it, the only way to do it is to make one movie per book. I guess maybe you could combine 1 & 2 into one film, but the rest each need a separate movie, or the whole thing will turn into a confusing mess.

I dont usually comment here, but I was a HUGE Dark Tower fan and I agree, the only way this could be done right is if Showtime or HBO threw a massive budget at it and let it be made a limited run series, like 24 1-hour episodes. You cant squeeze the complexity into even 3 long movies... it needs to have the dark side to it and the long storylines.