Apocalyptic Western Dark Tower Gunslings to TV, Movies

[SirDerick]

Kinda disappointed that J.J Abrams isn't doing it. I was watching lost and just though that he was a perfect director for this.

Oh well, might still be awesome.

Edit: as for the eight book, it's gonna be a story between the fourth and fifth book. and is going to star Cuthbert and the rest.

Personal opinion about the book: I really, REALLY loved the ending, don't know why everyone hates it, I thought it was fitting for such an epic tale. Besides, I don't think anything other ending would have do it justice.

Also, I personally think that the tower is based on the Stambha in Hindu Mythology. The story is that the Stambha (represented these days by the Shiva Lingam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingam ), is a cosmic column that has neither a beginning nor an end. It also serves as a bond between the earth and the heavens.

 

[Aptspire]

Kinda disappointed that J.J Abrams isn't doing it. I was watching lost and just though that he was a perfect director for this.

Oh well, might still be awesome.

Edit: as for the eight book, it's gonna be a story between the fourth and fifth book. and is going to star Cuthbert and the rest.

Personal opinion about the book: I really, REALLY loved the ending, don't know why everyone hates it, I thought it was fitting for such an epic tale. Besides, I don't think anything other ending would have do it justice.

Also, I personally think that the tower is based on the Stambha in Hindu Mythology. The story is that the Stambha (represented these days by the Shiva Lingam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingam ), is a cosmic column that has neither a beginning nor an end. It also serves as a bond between the earth and the heavens.

Thank you for the good exposition
No movie, please (except maybe a 14 parter)
TV series can work, just don't stick to a 'one book for one season' format...that type of unmoveable box is what Killed Umineko as an anime(so much potential wasted)

 

[Cliff_m85]

This means I'm going to need to actually finish the books I guess.

Don't. It's only going to depress you. It's really really bad, especially the last book.
When Stephen King made himself a character in the book I should've known he jumped the shark.

Isn't he ALWAYS in his books? (Someway he's there in all of them and I've seen lots of comic book artists do this) so whats wrong with it? Also I hear he's gonna make more books or something or do more work for the Dark Tower, also the comic book series, is that a prequel to the Dark Tower series or is it an actual comic book adaptation?

You're thinking of the movie adaptations where he plays a character. No, I mean he literally is a character in the book. Roland of Gilead meets Stephen King and saves him from getting hit by a car. I'm not kidding.

 

[Quiet Stranger]

This means I'm going to need to actually finish the books I guess.

Don't. It's only going to depress you. It's really really bad, especially the last book.
When Stephen King made himself a character in the book I should've known he jumped the shark.

Isn't he ALWAYS in his books? (Someway he's there in all of them and I've seen lots of comic book artists do this) so whats wrong with it? Also I hear he's gonna make more books or something or do more work for the Dark Tower, also the comic book series, is that a prequel to the Dark Tower series or is it an actual comic book adaptation?

You're thinking of the movie adaptations where he plays a character. No, I mean he literally is a character in the book. Roland of Gilead meets Stephen King and saves him from getting hit by a car. I'm not kidding.

Well I'm also talking about his books too (its a conspiracy!!) I mean I'm sure he is, just how even before Randall Flagg showed up (in The Stand)you just knew he was there

 

[ace_of_something]

There is no way these will effectivley a movie series. I think it would work better as a TV series on HBO or something like that.

 

[Grey_Focks]

Terrible books, terrible writer, certainly a terrible combination.

Did the Dark Tower series have the worst ending for anything ever, or did the Dark Tower series have the worst ending for anything ever?

If you hate the writer and the books, why the hell did you read all 7? And I cannot disagree more with the ending. I'd say it was the perfect ending for Roland. He spent his entire life obsessed with getting to the Dark Tower, and along the way he did some downright horrible things, though he did good as well. I think the point of him having to repeat this cycle (as a punishment) is so he will hopefully not make some of those same mistakes. What he did to Jake in the first book was one of the biggest "YOU MOTHER FUCKER!" moments for me in a book, ever.

OT: I can only ever see the this series being made into a mini-series with a good budget. Even if each book was given it's own movie, they would just have to cut too much, and it was all the little details and the deep characterization that made the books so memorable. TV series would, sorry to say, probably just not work. I say mini-series or bust. I also don't really think there needs to be another Dark Tower book, as it really had the perfect ending. I hate saying this, ever, but dammit Stephen King don't be afraid to ignore your fans! We don't know what we want.

 

[viciouspen]

K well, awesome, super mega awesome, I never really thought this would even be a possiblity with the Dark Tower series.

So Awesome.

That said I'm really scared they won't do it well.

I mean.....look at Legend of the Seeker.

Gah doing the Dark Tower, that is seriously just, a crazy undertaking to get right.
If it's a movie I can't imagine it being done in under 3 movies, if not 4. Tv Series, alright, but it better have good funding and not skimp.
The world he created is just groundbreaking in the way King created his own genre practically. I've always loved the way he stuck all those things together and just made them work like that's just what the world was like.

 

[Volucer]

The books have got to be my favourite book series around, and I loved reading every minute of them (for the most part) but I'm still not entirely convinced that they could bring it to the big, or little, screen without compromising the quality of it.

 

[Carnagath]

Yeah, no. The movies, with those people behind them, are going to be terrible. A TV series might be more interesting though.

As for the books, I consider Wastelands a very fine post apocalyptic novel, and Wizard and Glass is an incredibly well written nostalgic love story with none of the excessive sex descriptions and emo hysteria that usually comes with love stories these days, it's very toned down and that's why it works so well. The rest of the books I found a bit boring, but I did love the ending. I did not think an American writer would be able to close this in such a way, but clearly King has done his homework on ancient Greek tragedies. Still, King has written much better novels than any of the Dark Tower ones, in my opinion at least.

 

[Cody211282]

Holy shit, there's an eighth?!

Last time I checked it ended at 7, so lets check





nope still only 7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Tower_%28series%29

 

[Arsen]

For those who have not read the seventh book, skip over.

Spoiler

ROLAND REMEMBERED AT THE END OF THE SEVENTH BOOK THE JOURNEY HE JUST WENT THROUGH. Hence the line "Somewhere up ahead was Walter and Walter would talk...". He knew of the Golgotha.

Why nobody ever gets that this is the ending to the seventh book is beyond me.

 

[Arsen]

After looking at the various projects and films the director and producer have both worked on...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akiva_Goldsman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Howard
I can safely say that this movie, if it is truly going to try cramming all seven books into one sitting, is going to be mediocre at best. There's a fair chance it will not do that well, actually. This has the stench of a sell-out all over it. And given that King's novels have a notoriously bad habit of sucking when being transposed onto the big screen...


Yeah, I'm betting money that this will suck balls. No one's going to give it the respect it deserves, not this late after publication.

He was the writer/producer for "I am Legend". Alright, f' this guy. I hated the fact that they cast Will Smith in the film, and second it wasn't even what the book was about.

 

[BlueHighwind]

Terrible books, terrible writer, certainly a terrible combination.

Did the Dark Tower series have the worst ending for anything ever, or did the Dark Tower series have the worst ending for anything ever?

If you hate the writer and the books, why the hell did you read all 7? And I cannot disagree more with the ending. I'd say it was the perfect ending for Roland. He spent his entire life obsessed with getting to the Dark Tower, and along the way he did some downright horrible things, though he did good as well. I think the point of him having to repeat this cycle (as a punishment) is so he will hopefully not make some of those same mistakes. What he did to Jake in the first book was one of the biggest "YOU MOTHER FUCKER!" moments for me in a book, ever.

OT: I can only ever see the this series being made into a mini-series with a good budget. Even if each book was given it's own movie, they would just have to cut too much, and it was all the little details and the deep characterization that made the books so memorable. TV series would, sorry to say, probably just not work. I say mini-series or bust. I also don't really think there needs to be another Dark Tower book, as it really had the perfect ending. I hate saying this, ever, but dammit Stephen King don't be afraid to ignore your fans! We don't know what we want.

Actually I loved the first book, despite Stephen King's many limitations as an author. He can write good work if he's disciplined enough (and doesn't waste 400 pages with dialog). I tried to get through this series, I really did. I wanted the next books to be as good as the first, but they just weren't. It kept on going down and down and down, until by Wolves of Calla I simply couldn't read another word. And on that level, right there, his epic already was a failure. But even if I didn't have the stomach to read it all, I still wanted to know the ending. Just because Stephen King has type-writer diarrhea doesn't mean that the fundamental beats of his storyline aren't still sound. Certainly the ending would make up for it, right? So I found the last book in my local Barnes & Nobles, and read the last few chapters. In the immortal words of the Comic Book Guy: WORST ENDING EVER.

And why is it the worst ending ever? Because it isn't an ending. The whole point of the journey was to read its ending. And we didn't. We just went through a single Groundhog's Day Loop. What happens when Roland is pure enough to reach his goal? Well, you'll never know because Stephen King wrote himself into a corner and couldn't possibly imagine anything cool enough to put at the end after thirty years of build-up. All we now know is that the journey is many times longer than we previously thought - not its ending (or even its beginning for that matter).

Unless you're into complex metaphorical explanations for the ending, some of which I've heard are quite good. But this is Stephen King we're talking about here - his work isn't exactly "deep" is it? If there is a metaphor, his characters will probably spend 200 pages talking so that you know what it is.

PS: Sadly the poem at the end of the last book was far superior to every word of the entire saga.

 

[JS ibanez]

Terrible books, terrible writer, certainly a terrible combination.

Did the Dark Tower series have the worst ending for anything ever, or did the Dark Tower series have the worst ending for anything ever?

you hated it that much and read all the way to the end? kudos on your perseverance.


I rather enjoyed the books. the end annoyed me but I felt it was good. If it was a happy ending when all was right with the world(s) it would have seemed wrong to me.

Totally did not know there was an eighth book coming out! :O
And I look forward to any tv series or movie.

 

[smitteee329]

Another idea...Timothy Olyphant for Roland? Perhaps? See Justified or Deadwood for reference as to why...

 

[GL2814E]

Goldman- "It's sadly a post-apocalyptic world without zombies..."

Not every post-apocalypse needs goddamned zombies. Did Mad Max? No because it would've ruined it. Besides, with the whole King-verse being a Multiverse, the TV series could have Roland go King's world of Cell, chock full of Psychic Zombies so there! (And before some nerdlinger argues with me about those not being true zombies, I know. However King wrote the book as a tribute to George Romero's stuff.)

 

[BlueHighwind]

Terrible books, terrible writer, certainly a terrible combination.

Did the Dark Tower series have the worst ending for anything ever, or did the Dark Tower series have the worst ending for anything ever?

you hated it that much and read all the way to the end? kudos on your perseverance.


I rather enjoyed the books. the end annoyed me but I felt it was good. If it was a happy ending when all was right with the world(s) it would have seemed wrong to me.

Totally did not know there was an eighth book coming out! :O
And I look forward to any tv series or movie.

Again, I didn't read all the way to the end. I gave up on the fifth book and skipped to the ending.

 

[Dudemeister]

This means I'm going to need to actually finish the books I guess.

Don't. It's only going to depress you. It's really really bad, especially the last book.
When Stephen King made himself a character in the book I should've known he jumped the shark.

I might still like it. I've always liked Stephen King's work. I only made it to the end of the third Dark Tower book before I got distracted by something else (probably some video game), but I remember liking it up to that point.

I think you should read them. While everyone loves to jump on the "last three were shit" bandwagon, I actually enjoyed them a lot and thought the end of the whole series was very fitting.
Don't let people discourage you from finishing a great series just because it didn't go exactly the way they wanted it to.