Ron Howard has been planning to bring Stephen King’s opus The Dark Tower for the screen for what seems like an eternity now, but despite numerous setbacks, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker is still keen to get him ambitious adaptation off the ground. Speaking to Empire during a podcast interview for his latest film Rush, Howard has offered a few words about the project, which is envisioned as a combination of movies and TV miniseries…
“The Dark Tower is something that we’re still working on. We’ve all taken a vow of silence about the progress, the headway, what we think our timetable is, because I don’t think I realized how much media interest there was in the title and how much excitement there was… [The Dark Tower’s] a fascinating, powerful possibility and even Stephen King acknowledges it’s a tricky adaptation, but to be honest, from a financing side, it’s not a straightforward, four-quadrant, sunny superhero story – it’s dark, it’s horror. That edge is what appeals to me, the complexities of those characters is what appeals to all of us. And I think Stephen King really respects that, with [regular screenwriting collaborator] Akiva Goldsman and myself, that that’s what we love about it, and that’s what we want to try to get to the screen… We’re working on it, and Stephen is very patient with us, and Akiva’s just gone off and directed a movie, I’m continuing to work, but the Dark Tower dreams – fever dreams, rather – are still there, but we’re not going to give it a timetable.”
So, there you have it. The Dark Tower is still in the works, but by the sounds of it, there’s still an awful long way to go before it becomes a reality…
Originally published September 17, 2013. Updated November 6, 2019.
