Posted on 05/13/2010 8:42:31 AM PDT by Hoodat
EXCLUSIVE: In a whopping deal coming together quickly, Stephen King, Imagine Entertainment and Weed Road are in discussions to make a screen trilogy and TV series out of King's epic novel series The Dark Tower. Akiva Goldsman will write the script, Ron Howard will direct it, and his Imagine Entertainment partner Brian Grazer will produce with Goldsman and King.
Universal is in talks to acquire a package that included the books, and the attachment of the team behind the Oscar-winning film A Beautiful Mind and The Da Vinci Code. Both Universal –where Imagine is based—and Warner Bros—where Goldsman’s Weed Road banner is housed—have been vying for the project.
The Dark Tower is King’s answer to JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, and the author will get his own screen trilogy. Like Tolkien, King's epic novel series is set in an otherworldly but familiar world, and involves a quest to save the world. The series spanned seven novels that involved Roland Deschain, the last living member of a knightly order of gunslingers who exists in a world that has an Old West feel, but which is infused with magic. He is on a quest to find the Dark Tower, a structure that holds the key to the nexus of all universes. He encounters many allies and enemies along the way, as the world crumbles around him.
The book series was once developed by JJ Abrams and his Lost cohorts Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, but they never cracked it. Goldsman, who has become a prolific producer, was the catalyst for securing the rights from King, and he brought it to Howard and Grazer. It was not immediately evident how large the transaction was, but King has often optioned his works for little . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at deadline.com ...
Right, OK...
From Publishers Weekly
What if a pulse sent out through cell phones turned every person using one of them into a zombie-like killing machine? That's what happens on page six of King's latest, a glib, technophobic but compelling look at the end of civilization—or at what may turn into a new, extreme, telepathically enforced fascism.
Amazon.com Review:Then of course Mr. King dedicated the Book to Richard Matheson (author of I Am Legend) and George Romero (director of Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead) and has even said this book is an hoomage to the Zombie Genre.
Witness Stephen King's triumphant, blood-spattered return to the genre that made him famous. Cell, the king of horror's homage to zombie films
Ping.
Thankee-Sai.
I’ll watch for this if it do ya fine.
Guess it’s one of those agree to disagree moments :) No one came back from the dead, which I associate with Zombies.
I think PitStop would be good as Oy.
I don't think anyone even comes close to Michael Chiklis as Cort.
I think David Bowie gets the Man in Black...he's a very under-rated actor, and has the right creep factor.
Pitsy is a good dog.
It sucks folks post threads wanting him dead.
I like dogs and cats better than most people.
True story.
May have to reconsider reading it. It has been so long I may just start with book one.
As I thought, thanks Joe.
The next paragraph concludes, "The Dark Tower books, like most long fantasy tales written by men and women of my generation (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, by Stephen Donaldson, and The Sword of Shannara, by Terry Brooks are just two of many), were born out of Tolkien's."
Roland - Daniel Day Lewis
Eddie Dean - Tim Roth
Susannah - Zoe Saldana
Henry Dean - Tom Petty
Cort - William Forsythe
Father Callahan - Scott Glenn
Enrico Balazar - Christopher Walken
Walter - Gary Oldman
...I still like Chiklis as Cort, though ;-) When I was an ROTC cadet, I had a Master Sergeant that was everything Cort was. Since "The Shield" I've had difficulty separating the three (MSG Anderson, Cort and Chiklis) in my mind....
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