Few major projects of recent times have sounded quite so ambitious as the plans to bring Stephen King's The Dark Tower to the screen. Developed in conjunction with Universal for a while, the idea is for a trilogy of movies, and then a tie-in television show, all of which would share the same cast. That's something never attempted before, and sadly, the chances are it might never happen at all.
Universal eventually walked away from The Dark Tower last year, in spite of the involvement of Ron Howard (who was set to direct at least the first movie). However, it was always clear that another studio could take on the project if it wanted, and as such, The Dark Tower ended up at the door of Warner Bros.
Sadly, Variety now reports that Warner Bros too has elected not to back The Dark Tower, and it's hard now to think of too many studios who would. Warner Bros is the one that perhaps seemed most likely to back such a major project, but now that it has a trio of Hobbit movies to work with, perhaps that, and the cost of making The Dark Tower, led to its decision. A TV show and three films is hardly a small commitment, to be fair to it.
The project isn't dead as it stands, but it needs another studio, or cash-rich production company, to come in and invest if there's any chance of keeping it going. Right now, in its current form at least, it's not looking too positive.
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