Whoops. The storm clouds had been circling this one for a while, but now the Universal executives have decided that they don’t want to be involved in Ron Howard’s ambitious plan to adapt Stephen King’s Dark Tower series into a batch of films and TV seasons.
Yes, even with power producer Brian Grazer and regular cohort Akiva Goldsman on scripting duty, Howard was unable to convince the studio to take the risky financial gamble to make a proposed three films linked by a couple of TV runs to fill in the hefty plot.
According to Deadline, the studio bods read Goldsman’s script and the plan that the trio – along with Battlestar Galactica veteran Mark Verheiden – had come up with for the first stretch of the TV series and were only willing to give the thumbs up to one movie as a way to test the waters for more. But Howard and co didn’t go for that.
This isn’t necessarily the end for the story of gunslinger Roland Deschain and his quest to help save civilisation – given those involved, it’s possible that they’ll get the project set up elsewhere…