‘Ted’ Backer MRC In Talks To Finance Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Tower’
UPDATE: Media Rights Capital is in serious talks to take on The Dark Tower after Warner Bros declined to make what potentially amounts to three feature films and two limited run TV series. MRC’s Modi Wiczyk is a big fan of the Stephen King novel series, I hear, and the company is eager to capitalize on the positive momentum they got from developing and financing the Seth MacFarlane-directed summer sleeper hit Ted with Mark Wahlberg. MRC next has the Neill Blomkamp-directed Elysium with Matt Damon, and the company has the capital to back an ambitious project like The Dark Tower with director Ron Howard eyeing Russell Crowe as the gunslinger Roland Deschain and his quest to travel through a Western-style world woven with magic to find the Dark Tower, mankind’s only hope. Akiva Goldsman adapted the book and is producing along with Brian Grazer and Stephen King. Even though MRC was unavailable to comment, I expect this deal to make quickly. MRC has a distribution arrangement with Universal, but it’s unclear whether that studio would release the film. Universal developed it but passed on making the project before it moved to Warner Bros.
EARLIER, 5:02 PM: Warner Bros took the easy out and has passed on The Dark Tower, the ambitious multi-platform adaptation of Stephen King’s novel series. After getting an overhauled script from Oscar winning scribe Akiva Goldsman, the studio just balked on the project that Ron Howard wants to direct with Brian Grazer, Goldsman and King producing, and with their A Beautiful Mind star Russell Crowe being eyed to play the gunman Roland Deschain. Warner Bros follows Universal, which also bailed on making the project.
It’s something of an odd move for Warner Bros, given all the talk out there that with Harry Potter and the Chris Nolan-directed Batman movies over, the studio badly needs some franchise blood and keeps swinging and missing with its attempts to mint franchises out of its DC Comics stable of characters like Green Lantern and Jonah Hex. I just interviewed the author; King knows his way around a good story, and here is how he described what is waiting for whoever steps up to fund this movie: “The Dark Tower, to me, and I’m not unbiased because I’m the writer on this thing, but to me it looks like gold on the ground waiting to be picked up.” You need guts to find gold in this precarious time in the film business, and Warner Bros ultimately didn’t show any here. Peter Jackson is lucky that Bob Shaye ran New Line when he was down to his last chance to get The Lord Of The Rings made. If he was out pitching that movie today, I doubt that Jackson would have been able to persuade Warner Bros to say yes to what became a billion dollar franchise. I hope that Howard and his posse reload and try again, but this is a major setback for them.
The Dark Tower is rather dark though, and would probably receive an R rating if they followed the books. Could this be the reason two prominent studios passed?
Why not Sean Bailey and Alan Horn at Disney?
All the time, money and what few brain cells they have, they burn on junk like the DC (Disaster Comics) stuff. When someone who can write (at length, yet) comes along with a good story and a good possibility for box office, it’s “No Thanks, see you next Wednesday.”
How stupid can studio execs be? This example ought to be used in textbooks.
These books have a huge built in fanbase considering that the first book, Gunslinger, was released over twenty years ago. The series has found a new audience since the graphic novels were released and Stephen King is a highly, highly marketable brand. Like minded fantasy epics like Potter, LOTR, and Game of Thrones seem to be part of the cultural zeitgeist and are doing, you know, okay-ish.
So what’s everyone so afraid of? Dark Tower is a multi-BILLION dollar franchise.
Warner Bros is weaksauce…
Whoever made this crappy decision has forgotten the face of his father. Say sorry, big big.
This tale has been going on for years and deserves to be put in movie form or a tv series. With the technology that we have today I can’t wait to see the characters come to life. Hile Gunslingers!
MRC could never afford this…
They’d have to close up shop and sell their poison in another industry.
I agree. With all these other big fantasy stories out there, now is probably a good time for something like the DT series. Unlike other comments, I think they should have the guts to do SEVEN films and do it real justice. With such an in-built fan base they have an all but guaranteed audience, to do less is to risk the wrath of the fans.
I have to say I was encouraged by hearing that Ron Howard was involved, but Russell Crowe?!?!?! You jest!?! I vote for Hugh Jackman!
Also, I vote against anime which has a smaller appeal-group. Having bought the first 3 graphic novel companion versions to the DT books, I still have 2 unwrapped….! Not as fulfilling as the story and I don’t think an animated film would do justice to the epic scenery. I want to wonder at it like in LOTR or Australia (Hugh Jackman… nudge, nudge!)
BIG BIG!!! PERFECT BEES!! LMAO!!! LOVE IT!!
have you read the script? it’s unfilmable and a bad take on the material. kudos to warner (and uni) saving money for once.
Seems like the commenters who claim to have read the script never give any juicy details. By all means, dish!
The Dark Tower will be another The Golden Compass. Philip Pullman’s work also seemed like “gold waiting to be picked up” and we all saw how that turned out. Some great novels just don’t make the transition to screen well. WB has screwed up plenty of times, but they made the right call with passing on this.
I agree some books do not transition well to movies, however I had fear that The Stand and some of the others of Kings works would not transition well and they came across very well. As long as King is in control of the production it should do well. I do question Ron Howards’s ability to tackle this one, this is more for a Jackson style director..
It can only be shown as a series though, too much details to be had and missing those can spell disaster. One book to film that comes to mind is the Dead Zone, had heaps of symbolism and yet they missed all of it in the movie, man was I pissed…
They would have to put it out as a PG rated film too, too graphic for the younger crowd and that may be the drawback…
“As long as King is in control of the production it should do well.”
Like that time King adapted his own story as the writer-director of MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE? That didn’t turn out so well.
Maximum Overdrive… bad example. A producer doesn’t direct. As for writer, Stephen King writes very good scripts. Rose Red, Storm of the Century, The Stand…
When I saw that someone else was writing the script, I had hoped it was somebody unknown, but that Sai King hand-picked. Upon reading who took the job, and about how much they loved the series… Howard and Goldsman haven’t given up, even though they’ve been passed over by two studios. That says a lot. That says that they are devoted fans. If they were in it just for the money, they would have left it to the wolves by now.
It is too big a project, really. It is going to take some nuts of steel to pull it off. WB probably saw the script, said “DAMN” from it’s sheer ambition, and then said, “Mommy!”
George Lucas peddled Star Wars for a long time before Fox finally agreed to do it. With any luck, The Dark Tower will be the same thing. Somebody will get the kahunas to take it on, and it will blow people’s minds.
Oh, I believe Maximum Overdrive falls into the same category as The Wraith. So cheesy, it becomes awesome. It had AC/DC before they sold out. I’ll still watch it over a vast majority of the dribble being made today.
Jon, idk what you saw in The Stand but it is trash, they all are except for Stand By Me (The Body), Shawshank, and The Green Mile. Is there another King adaptation that isnt total crap?? If there is, I cant think of it. IT was cool. But totally shoulda been a major motion picture. But that novel is too big as well. I cant wait to see what they do but itll probably end up like the last hour and fifteeen minutes of Dreamcatcher. JUNK!!!
Um. No. The Golden Compass ends with two little kids essentially killing God. I was shocked when I heard the film got picked up. Development execs clearly didn’t do their homework and read the entire series. Elephants on rollerskates? A disenchanted nun? A pair of crying gay angels? God in pope mobile?
They also dumbed Compass down too far.
Gunslinger ain’t Compass.
This NEEDS to be picked up by HBO as a weekly show.That way they don’t have to cut anything important out of the books.There are enough books to make a series out of it….Come on HBO!!!!!
Yes, DT should be made into a TV series, the novels are fertile ground for CGI imagination, but PULease not Russel Crowe and not an HBO, not everyone gets HBO
I for one would NOT like to see HBO with anything to do with the Dark Tower. They have screwed up more book to screen adaptations. Can you imagine the Dark Tower as the next True Blood because that is about all they are capable of.
I cannot agree more. I’m so dissapointed with the mess that has been made of True Blood that I have lost faith in HBO. Some of King’s books have been adapted so well to film, and others were a mockery of his work. Whatever way it ends up getting brought to life, if it stays true to the story it will be epic to watch. If the screenplay of this is as bad as it sounds I hope King steps in to find someone who will do justice to his creation and won’t allow it to go to film if it is not up to snuff.
Oh yeah HBO is crap. The Sopranos, The Wire, Rome, Deadwood, Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire…all crap shows with NO epic scope.
What? The True Blood series is exactly like the books … utter crap! GOT is one the best adaptations … ever!
Have you read the True Blood books? Obviously not because they are far from what has been happening on the show.
A series wont do. Think about it guys and gals. Itd take yrs to tell. If you actually read all 8 books then you know that wouldnt be good at all. Except maybe the age of the characters problem that was brought up earlier would be solved.
This was a total mistake on their parts to pass this series over. I absolutely love “The Dark Tower” series and am really tired of seeing all these remakes, what happened to actual storylines? This would of been awesome to see Roland on the big screen.
I agree that this should be an HBO project. But I don’t think Ron Howard is the right man to helm this. Personally, I’d rather see Peter Jackson directing (is there anyone in Hollywood right now better at bringing fantasy worlds to life?), with Thomas Jane playing Roland.
Some One Should do it. But they should stay as true as possible to the series of books and take their time. I rally enjoyed this one.