Very Bad News for Dark Tower Fans

[dalmatianjaws]

According other internest sources every bit as reliable as Movie Moron, Stephen King's epic meta-narrative fantasy series, The Dark Tower, has been optioned by Akiva Goldsman, Ron Howard, and Brian Grazer (writer, director, producer, respectively).


Let's see, let's see ... how can I f*ck this up royally?

This announcement, made not long after J.J. Abram's Bad Robot moniker returned the material rights back to Stephen King, has sent fans into a negative frenzy.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, n, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

No.

Really? The writer of BATMAN & ROBIN and LOST IN SPACE, Akiva Goldsman, to write THE GUNSLINGER film? Really? - AIN'T IT COOL NEWS

While Ron Howard has some fine films on his resume (Apollo 13, Frost/Nixon) he also has some real bummers (The DaVinci Code, Angels and Demons) and his worst films have been scripted by the notorious Akiva Goldsman, who spat in the face of Batman fans with Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, the latter of which is considered one of the worst superhero movies ever made:



While Goldsman's light and silly genre sensibilities might seem the perfect match for a fantasy franchise, take into account this is a Stephen King fantasy series, which not only deals with deep philosophical and religious concepts brought on my King's near-fatal accident, but also takes daring risks with prose, weaving King himself into the story in a bizarre meta-narrative twist that makes the books almost impossible to convert into movies.

Also, Goldsman writes silly things, and The Dark Tower is ... well ... dark:


Adorable.

While the Howard/Grazer/Goldsman trio plans to spin the movie (or movies, depending on if they go for the standard trilogy) into a television series that will help spread the storytelling weight, seeing as this series consists of seven volumes, a seemingly good idea for converting these books, it's the quality of the movies and TV show that are in question.

Again, remember, this is the same writer that spawned this scene (Movie Moron apologizes for the graphic nature of this travesty):




Feel free to add your outrage to the comments below. Or, you know, a different opinion. If you dare! 


Source: Heat Vision

[dnwilliams]

I don't know...this could be kind of COOL. I think people should learn to CHILL. Such insubstantial news doesn't deserve the FROSTY reception.

[David Hawk]

You're going straight to hell with those comments dnwilliams, even Mr Freeze wouldn't have approved

[ad4m22]

Seriously, this should never be made into another media. I've just read part four and it's so utterly massive that it would never be done properly. This is a bad idea.

And the names attached made me sick up in my mouth.

[dalmatianjaws]

Agreed. Kind of. I believe anything can be adapted, it's all in how you approach it.

In the case of the Dark Tower (which is about to change DRASTICALLY in book five, be forwarned) it gets so fucking META that it will take a fucking genius to adapt it and make it watchable while still being true to the books heart.  These guys are not geniuses. These guys are artistic douches.

[dnwilliams]

I believe anything can be adapted

Watchmen can't be adapted.

[dalmatianjaws]

good point.  made well


Though, to be honest, Watchmen was NOT that hard to make right, comparatively. the movie's real weakness, artistically, was not having the guts to stray from the book in some areas and hewing too closely in others.

[dnwilliams]

I completely agree. There's also the fact that there are certain works of fiction that are conceived more than simply as a story, but as something that utilises the medium that the story is first told in so completely that any adaptation would lose so much in translation to any other medium.

There's actually a better example of a comic that can't be adapted for the screen than Watchmen, called Flex Mentallo, but it's less well known and it's out of print. It's metafictional, it's a comic about comics, and the only way it could possibly work in another medium would be to make it a book about book, or a movie about movies, which is to say, tell a different story entirely.

Can't see House of Leaves working on film either.

Also, something like this page from The Flash. Clearly influenced by movie dream sequences, but it uses six different art styles on one page. The only way to replicate that would be with animation. (Which might be pretty cool now that I mention it...)