J.J. Abrams Says 'Dark Tower' May Follow 'Lost'

Lost celebrates its 100th episode tonight, with the eventual goal somewhere around 125 episodes. In case you don't know, it'll all wrap up next spring. And after it's over, J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof may finally get to work on one of the more ambitious adaptations you can even imagine: Stephen King's Dark Tower. Abrams' Bad Robot earned the rights to the project back in 2007, after Abrams and Lindelof met with Stephen King. And it looks like the day is nearing when The Dark Tower will move to the front burner. "Damon is obviously still on Lost, we've been working on Star Trek together," Abrams told IGN. "As soon as Lost is done, hopefully we'll get to begin tackling that." Tackling is a good choice of words, because Dark Tower is massive. That's the reason it's never been made. Where do you start? What do you leave out? How do you make it a faithful interpretation but make it accessible? Lindelof said not too long ago that the proper way to do it is spread over seven films, which puts it in the really grown up Harry Potter arena, and I think I could be down with that. The question is will Paramount be convinced by that pitch. After all, Bad Robot has a good thing going with the studio, re-upping for a few more years based in large part on the test audience results for Star Trek. But Dark Tower needs to have that seven-picture commitment, and in the current economic climate, that might be too much to agree to all at once. That could leave it in Narnia territory, and there are currently no guarantees that we'll see that complete series. I'm pulling for it, and so is King, obviously, but would it be worth doing over three or four movies just to finally get it made?

Comments

[Adam]

There is a lot that should be left out I think. Also, there are some things that were messed up in the writing that should be fixed. My main pet peeve being when that kid can draw things and they become real and they forget to draw new legs for the chick (haven't read the books in a while forget her name).

[orinn]

I dont read so all I see is Captain Mal of Firefly with a giant bird in the background.

[Anonymous]

@orinn

Captain Mal is a little bitch compared to that man. He is Roland, THE gunslinger.

[BSmith]

This just made my day. If they made this into a 7 part movie series, there might be actual tears of joy. The tick tock man, Eddie, Susan, Roland, Jake. Now I know my quest is to reread all the books again this summer. Ending will kind of piss movie goers off, but meh.

[Will]

The series is an infinite loop. If the movies could pull that trick off, leaving the desire to pop disc one in right after finishing disc 7, it would be pretty awesome. I just don't know if there is enough in The Gunslinger to stoke the fires for six more movies. Maybe they should film two movies to start and release them a month or two apart. Then do one a year for the next five years?

Also, where does Star Trek get left in all of this? Is Abrams walking away for the sequels? Cause you know Paramount has already ordered about 11 of them.

[Dave]

They should start the series of movies right after the final book. Since everything is a loop, they would have the freedom to change things a bit but still leave the original story alone. Maybe get Roland one step closer.

[Will]

Actually, as I thought about this post further (passing the time at my boring job, of course) I began to consider that Stephen King's material, with the exception of the stuff Frank Darabont directed, has been successful in only one medium: TV.

Perhaps people are jumping the gun at this news, imaging the Dark Tower to be a Harry Potter like series of films, when actually, for as dense as it is, might lend itself to a five or six year television series much better.

And who better to do this, I wonder? The man with two letters for a first name, that's who.

[Beamer]

Although I've read this series 4 times and love it so much I'm getting ready to start again - I just can't imagine this being successful as a movie. Or even 7 movies.

They definitely couldn't do it justice with just one or two movies. But I don't see them being able to keep up the momentum for 7.

And what adult actor would want to sign on for 7 movies playing the same character? By the time he got done his own mother would be calling him Roland.

I don't know...I hope they do and I hope they don't. Either way, though, what about Hugh Laurie? He definitely has the scruffy look and can surely play the attitude card. And he already knows how to limp!