The Dark Tower movie rears its head again

Yep.

Bingo!

Well, here’s something.

With “The Dark Tower” poised to debut this weekend, multiple sources told Variety that the creative process — particularly in post-production — was plagued with problems and clashing visions.

Arcel, however, had never worked on this complicated a project, and he found himself in over his head on the $66 million fantasy film, say several sources.

Three blind screenings last October, shown before final effects work had been completed, confirmed fears that the picture was a mess. Audiences at the test screenings couldn’t understand the mythology and rated the film poorly.

Sources paint a more acrimonious picture of the production, one that was enabled by the unique nature of the deal that Sony struck with MRC — a pact that allowed competing power centers to emerge. The two companies split costs, and in return MRC was granted “kill rights” on everything from the marketing campaign to the final cut of the picture. If one company didn’t like a trailer or a cut of the film, it had to be scrapped, making it difficult to achieve consensus. It’s a rare type of partnership, with the kind of sign-off that few production companies enjoy. That led to a case of “too many cooks in the kitchen,” according to one insider. King also had a great deal of input. In return for the rights to his work, he retained veto approval of almost every aspect of the film.

Sony and MRC admit “The Dark Tower” defied easy translation. The books move forward and backward in time and reference multiple genres, from gangster films to Arthurian legends. It was a struggle to combine parts of several books into an 88-minute film that appeals to both King devotees and mainstream audiences.

They should have just made movies that told the story from the books… Not try to compress 7 books into a single movie.

Why wouldn’t they want the income from 7 movies? Are they nuts? Just look at the Harry Potter series.

I think the problem is that they didn’t want to commit right out of the gate on multiple movies. Harry Potter had a massive youth audience that was on fire because the book series was ongoing when the first movie premiered. There was very little risk. Conversely, the Dark Tower audience is older, less enthusiastic, and have largely moved on to other things in the years since the books ended.

True. OTOH King has a pretty solid readership. If they make a really good film based on book 1, it would do a lot to sell the rest. Of course the bottom line is always the bottom line.

Wait, so this is trying to make the entire series into an hour and a half movie? I’m… not psyched

Well, based upon the structure of the novels, they can always start over and try again.

Kinda. It’s sort of a compressed alternate-reality (which fits) take on the saga via mostly books 1,3, and uh 7, I guess.

The IP holders say the in-the-works TV show will depict the next cycle of the tale.

So it IS set after the series? Does Roland have the horn?

Maybe?

Goldsman described the final, “pared-down” script — alarmingly pared-down to fans, who’ve questioned the 95-minute length — as quintessentially a father-son story: “a boy who is fatherless, and a man who has lost hope, who finds it in the eyes of a little boy.” It draws primarily from King’s first and third books (in which the Gunslinger makes futile and repeated efforts to reach the Tower), and serves both as a first installment and sequel to the series — which even director Arcel admits is confusing.

The director, who’s making his English-language feature debut, and who taught himself the language by reading King, said,” “It’s the heightened state of awareness for our hero, so that it’s his last journey through the adventure.” King also tweeted a photo of a long-lost horn, which the Gunslinger now carries, that was a hint to fans this might be Roland’s final journey to the Tower, disguised as his first.

Eh, could be ok I spose

Dude! Spoiler! ;)

That’s just how Stephen King writes about bonerz.

IMG_0410

Is… is,uh, is Roland a go’er?

nudge

Hey, they could have done what King did, and just leave a huge gap in between.

I dunno how long I had to wait to read book 4… Over 10 years, I think.

The thing which I’m kind of curious about is how none of the trailers have showed anytime but Jake and Roland.

Where are Eddie, Susannah, and Oy?

88 minutes! No time for supporting characters.

They really should have just filmed the first book. But, fingers crossed that Elba and McConaughey can save it.

Seriously, the first book works have been an awesome movie on its own, although it might have been difficult for some of the audience to follow it given how temporally disjoint it was.

But all the stuff with Roland’s training as a gunslinger would have been pretty good box office fodder.

The fight with Cort? I would have liked to see that.

It just looks awful. The goofy way they have Ildris loading the guns in mid-air insta-lost any money from me.