NOOOOOOOooooooooooooooo!

I'd love nothing more than to see The Dark Tower shot on film, and I think the guys behind Lost could pull it off. However, as much as I love the books, they would not work as theatrical movies like the Lord of the Rings did. The Gunslinger and The Drawing of the Three (the first two books) are great but they are not designed in a theatrical way that would pull in new viewers and help them understand the fantasy world they're in. It isn't until the third book, The Wastelands that we really get a sense of what Mid-World is and what kind of journey Roland and his Ka-tet have embarked on, and it isn't even until book four Wizard and Glass that the villainous Man in Black (whose past connection to Roland and Roland's pursuit of him are the most likely things to make people like the story of the first book) finally makes his return. One thing Lord of the Rings had that The Dark Tower doesn't is consistency of story from one book to the next. A couple of the DT books see the characters get sidetracked from their main mission (i.e. Wolves of the Calla) and that's more likely to piss off audiences who just want to know what's up with that Dark Tower thing than it is to impress them.

If these guys want to do The Dark Tower right and stay true to the source material, they should get in touch with a network like HBO or Showtime and try to do the whole thing as one big mini-series, instead of doing movies and taking the gamble that the first few will be successful enough to get the studio to greenlight the rest of them.

Absolutely... this is a 'sequence' rather than a series. The first book alone (the shortest) is in actuality a series of essays by a neophite writer, and the books differ so broadly in tone (because of where King was 'at' at the point of each tome's creation)

HOWEVER... with some hearty restructuring (which I'm sure Mr King would not be against) CLEARLY the Dark Tower cycle would be an epic series of movies -

3 would do it (a lucky number)

Mischa

No offense intended, but the Dark Tower series has roughly 3,000 pages of text between all seven books. Even if you restructured the story to include only the basic themes of the series, you would have to butcher the story to make it work in three films. Anyone seeking to adapt The Dark Tower owes it to the fans to be true to the material. Television networks like HBO and Showtime offer much more creative freedom (not to mention a lot more run time) for extremely complicated stories like The Dark Tower. If they can't stay true to the story we fans know and love, than they shouldn't do it.

SciFi channel could do it. They did a good job with the Dune adaptations.

i think sai King should finish the story Becuase there is always a endinghis life can not go on like that forever and plus this time he has the horn thankee sai the movies should be the continuation of the books

yes yes yes yes yes yes yes....... Make it! I don't care if the movie is 12 hours long! Do it do it do it!!!! :-)
That would be the awesome awesomest awesome.

To be honest, the second half of the series was so poor that having someone take the flavor and universe created in the first couple of books and make that into an original movie -- same characters, same general plot, but completely redone -- that would be an improvement.

No no no no no no NO!

You would have to butcher the story unforgivably to do this as a theatrical film. If you want to do this thing even remotely properly, it needs to be at LEAST 1 two hour movie per book (more with the later novels) and, honestly, they tie in with his other novels too much. A heavy-handed adapter would cut those references which would destroy much of the nuance of the story.

Ideally, I'd like to see it become a television series a'la the new BSG with a firm ending time frame, say 5-6 seasons.

Yes!!! This is a meeting of creative forces that has me very excited! But it wouldn't work as a single movie, and probably not even as three. One movie to match each book, yes, I could absolutely live with that!

This is really old news. King sold JJ the film right for $19 like two years ago and even then JJ said it wouldn't happen until after Star Trek.
Other than that, yea, I think it will be cool.

This brilliant epic tale would be extremely difficult to capture in just a few films. A SciFi miniseries would be good epecially if it were structured like "Taken" was, a series of weekly movies. Abrams is the right guy I think. I hope to see it! And to bicker, the person who thought the second half of the series was "poor", I ask, "are you sure you weren't reading Harry Potter?" The last 3 books were some of King's greatest work. (Although books 5 and 6 really could have been 1 book) I suggest you re-read them...

I'd love to see these books in the theater, but I'd be even more excited about the idea someone had a few posts back - ask King to finish the story "for real". I found the end of the final book very disappointing.

A mini-series, or a one year series. Movie? NO! To fit everything in would mean cutting out most of the story. Not to mention most, if not all, of King's books do not translate well to the big screen. King spends a great deal of time establishing characters. Movies spend almost no time on character development.

I totally agree with Hyperwraith miniseries is the way to go with this series of books.

A films series is definitely the way to go. Perhaps shoot 2 or 3 of them consecutively and then wait a year or two for the rest. The books contain decidedly different tones and that should translate to the movies as well. A mini-series wouldn't have the scope necessary and it would be shot too close together and with the same style which would be inappropriate for this project. It could be an unprecedented project if done properly.

.

Writers don't paint pictures...the reader does that. Directors are readers who try to paint pictures. No matter how good a movie adaption of a book is, it will always be different from the picture that we the viewer have already painted as a reader...

OH god not another King movie!! Please for the love of my sanity please don't let me lose more of my life by watching these rubbish movies. Keep them the way they're meant to be, in a book.

They should use the technique the makers of Mutant Chronicles used. Several scenes from that movie made me think of Lud - and how effectively it could be brought to the screen (large or small).

"SciFi channel could do it. They did a good job with the Dune adaptations."
By Freehawk at 10:34 PM ON 05/01/09

I'm sorry to be a d**k Freehawk, but SciFi Channel movies are amateurish at best. They are nothing but time-fillers so the netwrok doesn't have to pay for the rights of legitimate sci-fi movies and TV shows. Handing them the Dark Tower franchise would be a complete disaster.

I doubt any movie version will do it justice. The only way to make the stories as complete as they should be would be to make them into a miniseries each. (Preferably on a cable station) That way proper character development can be done. Otherwise, we will stick to the action and quick references to larger issues to come.

It's a matter of time before such a movie gets made from such a long series, but done right?

That's the question.

I think that each book could be handled like the tv version of The Stand. Make them a maxi-series of 4 2 hour movies so that you would have to cut out as little as possible. On HBO would be best but if not, I'd say go with NBC and then ABC if NBC pasted. It would make for great a summer series.

It would be impossible to adapt all of the material in all seven books to film - but there are many elements that could be cut and still leave the heart of the story intact. Consider what's been done with Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and many of King's previous books that were made into movies (on second thought, skip that - most have been stinkers).
Roland lives!

I think there's great potential here. What if instead of retelling the story, you take the movie as a continuation where he has the Horn with him this time. Then you have the creative freedom to alter the story slightly, and we all still weep with joy.

I keep seeing up above mini series. Do you think JJ is going to waste his time with a Mini Series when he can soak up as much money as he can via the theater?

I've only personally read a few of the books when I was younger and since I'm not much of a book reader anymore it would be cool to see it on the big screen however what I do remember I'd hate to see ruined by leaving details out.

"This is really old news. King sold JJ the film rights for $19 like two years ago."

Actually, it was 19 cents, not dollars.

I believe in J. J. Abrams and his ability to bring top-notch entertainment to the small and big screens. However, I think this may be over anyone's head.

I'd rather see Mick Garris direct than JJ, but done is done I reckon. I don't want to see it on the big screen, that'll ruin it, so will 7 or 19 big movies. A mini-series will do ya fine. The cast is the most important part, I hope they find the right folk to do right by ya.

19 hours it should run, 2 hours a night, 3 hours on the last night, for 9 nights or weeks. It should be on a cable channel that I don't even subscribe to (HBO/Showtime) (for language) with a quick release to DVD so I can buy it because we all have to be able to hear Eddie swear when he says (insert NYC joke here) and other various colorful things.

I think that this would be difficult to pull off, but if done right it would be very cool. The problem is, as with any adaptation, is that we all have our own ideas as to like, what movie star is playing Roland in our head. (For me, its whoever played the 'Sandman' guy on Spider man, but with long hair like he had in 'Tombstone'). So, it can be bad, letting someone else decide for you what you will envision from here on when you read the book. But, I do think that at least 6 2-3 hour films would have to happen to make it work. Gunslinger and Drawing could be combined, but then I think each book would need its own movie. I just wonder if Tower (my favorite series of all time) has a big enough following for studios to justify putting up the money to make the movies properly like they did with The Hobbit.

I would prefer to see a series on HBO. We'll see how they handle GRRMs Game of Thrones. If that goes well, I would LOVE to see Dark Tower be a series like that. Maybe 2-3 seasons, with 2-3 books a season.

I am deff curious to see how it turns out. Im excited to see what jj can do. Honestly King has never really cared about the previous films from his books. But anyone that has read more then one King novel should know what the tower means to him. He would not let it be butchered. We should know that with him selling the rights for "19" dollars. So if we're patient Im sure we'll see something great. And I agree that it should deff be a & movie thing if theyre going to do movies. A mini-series would be great too. We will just have to wait and see!

I am deff curious to see how it turns out. Im excited to see what jj can do. Honestly King has never really cared about the previous films from his books. But anyone that has read more then one King novel should know what the tower means to him. He would not let it be butchered. We should know that with him selling the rights for "19" dollars. So if we're patient Im sure we'll see something great. And I agree that it should deff be a 7 movie deal if theyre going to do movies. A mini-series would be great too. We will just have to wait and see!