Despite Recent Setbacks, Ron Howard Still Bullish on Dark Tower

After so much preliminary hype surrounding the status of Ron Howard’s film and TV adaptations of Stephen King’s ‘Dark Tower’ projects, fans were understandably disappointed earlier this month when the project was placed on pause—courtesy of Comcast’s absorption of Universal.

These things happen, of course, and the cable giant merely wanted a second look at Universal’s grand experiment in building a multi-medium franchise (three films and interlinked TV series), which was also destined to eat up a significant amount of investment capital as it stretched across several years. Comcast holds the purse strings and wanted to do their due diligence. Fair enough.

All the Internet chatter that the project was in danger of getting the kibosh may have been — according to Ron Howard — premature. Speaking with EW, Howard says that things aren’t anywhere near as baleful as some may have first thought.

“We had to pull back to our September start date due to budget delays and ongoing story development and logistical issues, but Dark Tower is moving forward,…We’re thinking of starting in early spring now. I can’t really say who’ll be in it yet, but Javier Bardem has shown a great deal of interest. We’ll know by the end of the summer, when our flashing green light goes solid.”

That said, Bardem is a highly sought-after movie actor now, so whether or not he’ll be able to commit to several years of playing gunslinger Roland Deschain remains to be seen.

Howard, on the other hand, seems a lock to not only direct the first film — written by writer/director Akiva Goldsman (Fringe, A Simple Mind) — but also to shepherd the entire saga at least to some extent.

Universal’s bold concept with King’s material would also have a ripple effect in Hollywood, as other studios possessing franchise properties looked across town to see how the entire experiment fared. Were the studio able to build, sustain — and even grow — an audience using this multi-medium technique, it’s likely others would quickly follow suit. This sort of evolution could, potentially, be a game changer in the way storytelling is performed.

Not that the concept hasn’t already been tried, of course, albeit with a signficant delay in time. Star Wars’ continuation from the film series to the animated Clone Wars (and the long-promised live-action series) shows that the appetite for hugely successful property across multiple mediums is there.

Moreover, Star Trek has also demonstrated the ability to transition between film and television, sometimes even maintaining references to certain story points.

As for Dark Tower, in the opinion of this writer the project will come to fruition, but doubtless with a few changes.