It appears that Amazon’s proposed series based on Stephen King’s The Dark Tower is no longer happening. It’s been reported that Amazon Studios has passed on the pilot for the television series, one which came from executive producer/showrunner Glen Mazzara and MRC. Apparently there were two scripts suggested for the pilot.
Stephen King’s The Dark Tower has always had difficulty in terms of adaptations. A film version of the novels was in development for quite some time before Sony finally made their bizarre attempt at adapting the source material. But as stated, it was bizarre and alienated much of the novels’ fanbase. As a result, the television series would have been an entirely new attempt at revamping the material for the screen.
However, it seems Amazon decided that the material was simply too difficult to translate to the screen and not really worthy of doing. Unfortunately, it does make sense that they would be hesitant to make a series out of The Dark Tower. But for fans that were hoping to see the series get made, it is no doubt disappointing to hear.
The Amazon adaptation of The Dark Tower would have been more faithful to the books and was intended to act as more of an origin story for series protagonist Roland Deschain. It’s been stated that actor Sam Strike would have played Roland Deschain, while Jasper Pääkkönen would be The Man in Black. Although the rest of the cast for the pilot wasn’t properly confirmed, it was rumored to have included Michael Rooker, Jerome Flynn and Joana Ribeiro.
It certainly would have been interesting to see what Amazon would’ve done with the material. Perhaps we’ll still get another adaptation down the line when the time is right.
How do you feel about Amazon no longer moving forward with their television adaptation of The Dark Tower? Would you still like to see the novels get adapted again? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section down below!