• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

‘The Dark Tower’ Director Says Television Series Will Be ‘Totally Canon’

L

LordOfLore

Banned
Link.

After years of starts and stops and ever-evolving plans, Stephen King’s beloved book series “The Dark Tower” is finally hitting the big screen this summer, care of a stream-lined first feature directed by Nikolaj Arcel and starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey. While the seemingly “unadaptable” franchise has been the subject of some very ambitious plans, including multiple films and an accompanying television series, much of what will unspool hinges on the reception of the first film.

But that hasn’t stopped Arcel and company from working on the planned series, one designed to fill in the gaps between the new film — crafted as a sequel of sorts to King’s original books, and an “introduction” to non-fans — and the cyclical battles between Elba’s Roland Deschain and McConaughey’s Man in Black.

And, as Arcel explained to IndieWire in a recent interview, the series itself will be “totally canon,” unlike the film, which spins the story of into a slightly tweaked direction that is designed to offer up new adventures.

“It’s being written,” Arcel said of the long-gestating series. “I was part of writing the pilot, like the first season ideas and the pilot and the second episode. It’s gonna be awesome. What was exciting about that, whereas with the film, we were really trying to create an introduction and make a standalone film that could sort of live in itself, but what was also exciting, working on the TV show at the same time, is that is totally canon.”

He added, “We’re going back in the past. It’s very, very closely adhering to the ‘Wizard and Glass’ novel and parts of ‘The Gunslinger’ novel. That was exciting to be even more like, ‘Okay, now we’re going to be able to even lift lines directly, or like [write] characters exactly as they are. Which, as a fan, was exciting in a different way.”

Earlier this year, producer and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman told Deadline that the television series was still very much on, saying, “The first episode of a show has been written, and we hope to retain Ron’s original idea to mix platforms…Idris for sure is part of this, and if the movie is Roland Deschain the gunslinger, the show is his origin story, based on the fourth novel in the series, ‘Wizard and Glass.'”

While the book that Goldsman references follows the adventures of a young Roland — age fourteen, as he earns his guns — that portion of the narrative is a story-within-a-story, allowing room for both a young Roland and an adult-aged Roland to appear in the series.

“Dark Tower” star Tom Taylor, who plays Jake Chambers, is also expected to appear in the series, though there’s no word yet on McConaughey’s potential involvement.

MRC and Sony Pictures, who are releasing the film, are set to finance a 10-13 episode first season, though there is no official word on yet it will begin production.
Click to expand...
 
W

WordAssassin

Member
Wait but isn't the movie also canon? It's a sequel. They've been going out of their way to say that, why would they suddenly say this and make it sound like the movie is some kind of non-canon spinoff?

I think maybe he's misusing the word canon? Like the movie is a sequel which pulls some stuff from the books and adds new stuff (via the cyclical nature of the story), and the TV show sounds like an actual direct adaptation of the book it's based on. Both are 'canon' in that the movie is a continuation of the Dark Tower story/canon and the TV show is an adaptation of a previously established story/canon.

This is gonna be such a massive clusterfuck isn't it.
 
C

Chris R

Member
They'd probably end up CWing the fuck out of it if the movie news is anything to go by... maybe it's for the best that this might not happen.
 
S

Slayven

Member
Bobby Roberts said:
There's not gonna be a TV series.
Click to expand...

Fury451 said:
Thankfully there's not numerous precedents where putting the cart before the horse turned out to be for things that never saw the light of day
Click to expand...

gdt said:
Never gonna happen.

It's like the reverse of the 24 series possible movie
Click to expand...

BrutishMrFish said:
That worked out so well for whatever was supposed to happen with Terminator: Genisys.
Click to expand...
What a bunch of gloomy Gusses
 
D

darkstar0155

Member
Oddly enough, WnG lends itself the best to a straight adaption being made easily. Although why the F is Jake possibly going to be in it. That doesn't make any sense. Same with Idris. The entire part where Roland is telling the story of his past is him telling it to Jake, Eddie, and Susannah. What they are just going to introduce Eddie and Susannah out of nowhere? And if Roland is only telling it to Jake then that's also going to be weak as shit cause he told all of them because they are ka-tet and was stating how he gets his friends killed.
 
Z

zeemumu

Member
WordAssassin said:
Oh shit which one is this?? The Universal Dark Universe thing?
Click to expand...

Yep. Before The Mummy released, Universal was going crazy over their Dark Universe, and the Universal logo turns into the Dark Universe logo at the beginning of the movie
Dark-Universe-Logo.jpg
 
L

LordOfLore

Banned
zeemumu said:
Yep. Before The Mummy released, Universal was going crazy over their Dark Universe, and the Universal logo turns into the Dark Universe logo at the beginning of the movie
Dark-Universe-Logo.jpg
Click to expand...

They really played it up when I was at the Universal Studio tour in LA.
 
Z

zeemumu

Member
LordOfLore said:
They really played it up when I was at the Universal Studio tour in LA.
Click to expand...

Did they really? I haven't been to Universal Studios since maybe April and they didn't mention it at all on my tour. Maybe the news hadn't dropped yet,but that seems like something they'd do.
 
R

Rootbeer

Banned
Putting news about the tv series out there is a great move, actually. They are playing every card they can to help drum up enthusiasm for TDT as a franchise going forward. The show may well never happen, but playing down the possibility of it happening does them no favors. They are hoping it will intrigue people into giving it a shot when they hear stuff like this.

As a fan of the books I'll be seeing it this weekend... after early impressions I'm certain IT will be way better, but they're both getting my money.
 
C

Cheebo

Banned
Anyone who thinks this tv show is going to see the light of day needs to have their head checked.

It. is. never. going. to. happen.
 
C

Carn82

Member
I hope it happens, but given the rumors about the movie I don't see it happening.

But a mix between The Gunslinger and Wizard & Glass.. how should that work? Roland trucking through the desert with W&G segments as flashbacks?
 
T

Therion

Member
Carn82 said:
But a mix between The Gunslinger and Wizard & Glass.. how should that work? Roland trucking through the desert with W&G segments as flashbacks?
Click to expand...

One of the flashbacks in The Gunslinger leads directly into the main story of Wizard and Glass.
 
Whompa02

Whompa02

Member
This smells like Turbo all over again. Announcing a giant line of garbage before the movie comes out, the movie tanks, and the rest of the bullshit crumbles with it.
 
C

ChubbyHuggs

Member
Whompa02 said:
This smells like Turbo all over again. Announcing a giant line of garbage before the movie comes out, the movie tanks, and the rest of the bullshit crumbles with it.
Click to expand...
Pretty sure they originally said if this movie does good the TV series will get made. Doesn't sound like the movie is going to be very good, so...
 
C

Carn82

Member
Therion said:
One of the flashbacks in The Gunslinger leads directly into the main story of Wizard and Glass.
Click to expand...

aaaaaah. Makes sense then. Its been about 15 years since I read The Gunslinger, I mostly remember some desert/wasteland stuff and him encountering Jake.
 
R

RatskyWatsky

Hunky Nostradamus
There was an unusual question in the exit survey for The Dark Tower this weekend, with moviegoers asked whether they were interested in a Dark Tower TV series. It was included in the survey by MRC, which is set to co-produce the series with Sony TV. The result was that 83% of The Dark Tower film audience indicated that they were definitely/probably interested in a TV series.
Click to expand...

Admitting that this is “uncharted territory” in terms of connecting film and TV in one franchise, “the success of the film has no correlation to whether the show will be successful or not, it has to stand on its own,” Wiczyk said, noting that the performance of Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. performance is not tied to how The Avengers movies do. “All it means is that there is a receptive audience, so if you deliver something good, you’re in good shape.”
Click to expand...

Source
 
1

120v

Member
i could get behind the movie being a stumbled pilot for a tv series, assuming this idea still has a pulse.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Clock Tower Franchise
7
1K
Werewolf Jones replied
Mike Flanagan to adapt a TV series based on Stephen King's "The Dark Tower"
34
3K
jufonuk replied
Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition Announced for Xbox Series S|X, PS5 and PC
News 2
70
8K
adamsapple replied
[Sweepstakes] Xbox Celebrates Mutant Nostalgia With Marvel Animation’s X-Men ‘97 Custom Comic Xbox Series X and Controllers
Deals
6
1K
FoxMcChief replied
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes | Rotten Watch
News 2
52
5K
cormack12 replied
Top Bottom