The Dark Tower


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Christian Bale's name has emerged in connection with J.J. Abrams's proposed Dark Tower movies.

According to Frost/Nixon actor Michael Sheen, Bale may be playing the role of antihero Roland Deschain in director Abrams's big screen adaptation of Stephen King's fantasy book series.

Asked by a Twitter follower what King character he would like to play on film, Sheen responded: "Roland of Gilead but I'm not right for it. I heard Christian Bale is playing it for J.J. Abrams."

Abrams recently revealed to IGN that it will be some time before he and Damon Lindelof begin work on the ambitious project.

"We got the rights for [Dark Tower] as a film," Abrams said. "Damon is obviously still on Lost and we've been working on Star Trek together. As soon as Lost is done, hopefully we'll begin tackling that."

The first Dark Tower novel follows Deschain, the last "gunslinger" of his kind, as he journeys across a desert in search of his adversary Randall Flagg.

http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a154951/b...dark-tower.html

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Producer Brian Grazer Says $40-50 Million Cut From ‘Dark Tower’ Budget Means “It’s Gonna Get Made”

EXCLUSIVE: Universal may have turned off the lights on “The Dark Tower,” but producer Brian Grazer, screenwriter Akiva Goldsman and director Ron Howard are still hard at work on developing the property. Universal’s worry about the Stephen King adaptation stemmed not only from the mammoth cost, but also the unprecedented vision, with a planned three-film cycle coupled with a television series to bridge the events of each picture. Last we heard the search was for outside financing, and then team with a studio to distribute the film. But, if the project is massively downgraded in scope, will studios be more eager to jump aboard?

We spoke to Brian Grazer during the “Tower Heist” press rounds today, and while we could only score a few moments with the prolific producer, he did inform us that the budget has been shaved way back, possibly to the project’s benefit. “We found a way to cut out $45 million out of the budget without changing the scope and actually giving it a good ending,” Grazer said, suggesting a heavily re-worked approach. “In the $140 million draft, the ending wasn’t quite as satisfying. Now, we’ve got $45 million, $50 million out of the way and a really satisfying ending. It’s gonna get made.”

What isn’t clear is if Grazer is talking about the first, or the only installment. Have they scaled back the budget to least get the first film out the door or has the vision been changed to focus on one story in the larger universe of King’s eight book series? We’re guessing with Grazer saying that they’ve done it “without changing the scope,” it’s the former rather than the latter.

And while we’re not terribly familiar with the source material, but we do know King books and his adaptations tend to struggle with endings. However, “the end” is such a nebulous concept when discussing what’s supposed to be a massive multi-platform offering. With Howard moving on to shoot “Rush” and currently involved with a host of other potential projects, there’s no clear idea of when this will move forward even with Grazer’s assurance that “it’s gonna get made.” But with Javier Bardem still attached in the lead role of Roland Deschain, and with a scaled down budget, financing will likely be much easier to pull together and perhaps we’ll see “The Dark Tower” kicked back to life sooner than we thought.

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I'm all for this. I just hope the first movie, if it ever gets made, isn't just The Gunslinger since it's probably the worst book in the entire series. It's sad really.

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Regardless of story pedigree or history I would be seeing this on the strength of those two actors alone. That said, I tried twice to get into the Gunslinger series and failed miserably by how unintelligible it was. Three times if you count the time I tried to read Wizards and Glass without knowing it was part of the series. Part of the appeal for me is not having to dedicate myself to a 1000 page novel.

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The Gunslinger is, by far, the worst of the series. Whenever I have to talk about a series taking sometime to to start up, The Dark Tower is where I point first.

The big thing that I'm taking is that holy crap, this movie is actually happening. Between it, Deadpool, and the American Gods tv series, I feel like the first time in a decade where there aren't any projects I'm looking forward to that are sitting in development hell.

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It's funny. I would be worried that the order of this series would be movie first, then a TV series adapting the fourth book. I would normally be like "uhm...how are they doping three Stephen King books in one movie?" But, now that I have literally JUST finished the second book in the series, I'm still waiting for a 90 minute movie's worth of plot to unfold. I'm expecting things to happen in book 3.

Moves made of books 1 and 2 would be the most boring fantasy films ever made...not counting that Tolkien shit.

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It was a pretty weak trailer. Felt like an extended teaser. I'm interested in the film, but no more than I was before the trailer. If I found it possible for trailers to lessen my interest, my interest would probably be lessened by it. But most trailers suck, so there's that.

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