Ron Howard's passion-project The Dark Tower is a bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand, the project is said to be very faithful to the Stephen King series. It's also understood that Howard and his producing team were hunting for a 3 picture deal (as well as 2 intertwined television shows) with Universal. And while all of this hadn't been given the green light by the studio yet, it all seemed to change a couple of weeks ago when Spanish actor Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men) was cast as the hero of the piece, Roland Deschain.
But now it seems we may in fact never see Roland, the Dark Tower or the Man in Black (the villain in the series), as Universal are having second thoughts on the whole deal. Variety spoke with sources inside the studio system who say that many of the executives simply think the project is too big and too much of a risk. After all, Howard is looking for 3 movies and 2 TV shows, so Universal would be looking at a price tag of about $400 million for the trilogy and that's not factoring in marketing, advertisements, etc. It seems the studio, having been burned by experiments like Scott Pilgrim, etc, have decided to play it safe. Which unfortunately means dumping projects like 'At The Mountains Of Madness' and now possibly The Dark Tower.
But now it seems we may in fact never see Roland, the Dark Tower or the Man in Black (the villain in the series), as Universal are having second thoughts on the whole deal. Variety spoke with sources inside the studio system who say that many of the executives simply think the project is too big and too much of a risk. After all, Howard is looking for 3 movies and 2 TV shows, so Universal would be looking at a price tag of about $400 million for the trilogy and that's not factoring in marketing, advertisements, etc. It seems the studio, having been burned by experiments like Scott Pilgrim, etc, have decided to play it safe. Which unfortunately means dumping projects like 'At The Mountains Of Madness' and now possibly The Dark Tower.
