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The Dark Tower TV series.

Started by Glebe, March 22, 2019, 03:49:00 PM

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Glebe



Looks like this is finally moving forward, without Idris Elba:

'Dark Tower' Pilot at Amazon Casts Jasper Pääkkönen, Sam Strike.

I feel bad for Elba, the movie was a bit of a wash out. Hopefully they make a decent fist of this.

Norton Canes


ToneLa

Oh good, possibly... This series is too good to have been wasted on that bloody awful fillum

Sounds like Wizard and Glass which would be ace done right!

Dex Sawash

Got Halfdan Uuumlauut off Vikings in it

Replies From View

It'll never be as good as the original.


BritishHobo

Was so gutted by how totally empty and generic the film was. It's like they didn't even try. I'm never a fan of judging films by the book, but I just can't understand how you could fall in love with the series and then look at that final script, as a fan and screenwriter, and genuinely go 'yeah, that's perfect!'

I'm really not sure about them doing Wizard and Glass. I liked the idea of them doing it if the film was good, using the TV show to fill out background, but relaunching the whole project and starting it there feels a bit blah. Can't they just fuckin do the story that's there?

purlieu

Doing the 'origin story', I suppose, makes sense as a first series, as damage limitation if anything else: if the show is a reasonable hit but not a massive one, throwing it in halfway through might be enough to put people off watching. But overall, you just gotta hope they keep it as faithful to the books as possible.

The absolute ideal would be to somehow do a Dark Tower 'cinematic universe' and tie it in with The Stand, Salem's Lot, Black House, etc. Given how the cinematic universe format seems to be the in-thing at the minute, it would have the potential to be really astonishing. But I'm just fantasising now.

Bazooka

The main actor does not look like gunslinger material to me.

mjwilson

So is this a full reboot? Just pretending that the movie didn't happen?

Mister Six

Looking forward to seeing that pasty white kid regenerate into Idris Elba.

As others are saying, doing Wizard and Glass seems a bit arse-about-face. I never made it through that book, so I'm especially dubious about it. Those first three, though... Wow! So yeah, while I'd love for this to work, my hopes are pretty much the same as they were for the film. Which is to say, nil.

Bazooka

Its been some years, the Wastelands is the best I think, you have Blaine The Train and Tick-Tock man scenarios, but starting not from the start for even such a heavy book series is madening.

Old Thrashbarg

I think Wizard and Glass was my favourite individual book from the series, so I'm happy to see that being adapted. But I don't think I'd have enjoyed that story anywhere like as much without already having the background for Roland and his friends established through reminiscences, and also having the knowledge of what Roland would become. So I think it's an odd starting point for this series if they're hoping to appeal to those unfamiliar with the books as well, unless it's heavily modified. Which will then annoy fans of the books.

BritishHobo

It also fundamentally misses the whole point of the series, which even the film managed to at least attempt - that you're joining this unknown figure on an unknown journey in an unknown world. Not front-loading on backstory and then going on the journey.

Glebe

Ron Howard Admits Mistakes in 'The Dark Tower' Adaptation.

Quote"I think it should've been horror. I think that it landed in a place—both in our minds and the studio's—that it could be PG-13 and sort of a boy's adventure... I really think we made a mistake not—I mean I'm not sure we could've made this movie, but I think if we could've made a darker, more hard-boiled look and make it The Gunslinger's character study more than Jake. I think in retrospect that would've been more exciting. We always felt like we were kind of holding back something, and I think at the end of the day it was that."

"The other thing might've been to just straight-on tackle it as television first. Disappointing because I poured a lot of myself into it, and sometimes this happens on these projects where everybody's best intentions—you're all pulling in a direction, and then you sort of say, 'Was that the right direction?' And I wouldn't say it was all compromise. I do think it was just a sense of maybe too much listening to what you think that the marketplace is calling for instead of the essence of what Stephen King was giving us."

Bit late now thought, mate. Hopefully the series will rectify the movie's probs.

bgmnts

Quote from: Bazooka on March 24, 2019, 10:24:21 PM
Its been some years, the Wastelands is the best I think, you have Blaine The Train and Tick-Tock man scenarios, but starting not from the start for even such a heavy book series is madening.

Will definitely have to revisit it but I smashed the Drawing of the Three in two nights, and I can't read for fuck anymore, but Wastelands I got 2 chapters in before abandoning.

Camp Tramp

As long as they do the Lobstrosities justice.

Bazooka

Quote from: bgmnts on June 04, 2019, 06:32:01 PM
Will definitely have to revisit it but I smashed the Drawing of the Three in two nights, and I can't read for fuck anymore, but Wastelands I got 2 chapters in before abandoning.

Shame because the Wastelands is the best if you ask me,(@sk me?) Drawing of The Three is very good but having returned to real life New York after the Gunslinger, it didnt hold my attention that well.

Bazooka

Quote from: Camp Tramp on June 04, 2019, 08:38:08 PM
As long as they do the Lobstrosities justice.

Indeed the entire budget should be spent on the door and the lobster monster.

wooders1978

Quote from: Glebe on June 04, 2019, 06:28:19 PM
Ron Howard Admits Mistakes in 'The Dark Tower' Adaptation.

Bit late now thought, mate. Hopefully the series will rectify the movie's probs.

Feckless hollywood idiocy right there - let's take the dark tower series as a source material and make the never ending story- might even flog a few toys?

St_Eddie

Quote from: wooders1978 on June 05, 2019, 07:27:44 AM
Feckless hollywood idiocy right there - let's take the dark tower series as a source material and make the never ending story- might even flog a few toys?

Spot on.  This comment right here...

Quote from: Ron Howard"I think that it landed in a place—both in our minds and the studio's—that it could be PG-13 and sort of a boy's adventure..."

...is sickening.  Fuck off with trying to phrase it as though you felt that was the most interesting direction to take the story in.  It was the route that the studio thought would make the most money and you went along with it.  Have some fucking balls and admit as much, you lowly little lap dog of Hollywood.  Or just continue to yip for your supper, like a good little doggy.

BritishHobo

#20
The thing that annoys me about that quote is I had hope for the film because I assumed from the shit they were saying that they at least intended to actually tell the complete story, and create that world on-screen - that they were just remolding the beginning, because this would be the last turn of the wheel, and so he would save Jake, meaning they factored his introduction into the first film rather than the third. But that wasn't borne out at all. It wasn't just a tonal thing; they took such a massive series and cut it off after one film, which I naively thought they wouldn't be daft enough to do. They killed the Man in Black and IIRC saved the Tower, all in a bland generic YA dystopia-land. They retained FUCK-ALL of the world from the books beyond names. If Ron Howard thinks the issue was just that the genre wasn't quite right, or that a wee bit more time should have gone to Roland, then he still doesn't understand. And I have absolutely no faith in the decision to restart with Wizard and Glass, either. They still don't get it.

Mister Six

What, visionary director Ron Howard didn't "get" a complex and imaginative work?!?!?!

Though as St Eddie says, it would have been the studio's decision and Howard just bimbled along with it. I doubt anyone with any sway in that production had even read The Gunslinger, as thin a tome as it was. Instead some intern summarised it as "a cowboy befriends a little boy in a fantasy land" and the screenwriters were told to curve the script in the direction of whatever it was the execs had imagined the story might be.

Which is both predictable and astonishing - King isn't some YA author with two books to his name. He's a brand in of himself, and the Dark Tower series has acquired millions of fans over several decades. The absurdity and arrogance of it!

Bazooka

I think the only way it can succeed is to cast Ian (Adam Woodyatt) Beale as Roland and Phil Mitchell as The Man in Black. I just saw Gareth Bale is going to be making £1 million  a week, If I earned that I would seriously make the series with them.

biggytitbo