Stephen King’s The Dark Tower Finds A New Home At Warner Brothers

The saga of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series’ many efforts in coming to cinematic life continues; after Universal passed on Ron Howard’s ambitious plan to do a set of movies as well as a series of television episodes on HBO, many King fans gave up hope that something as ambitious as this would ever see the light of day. But there is light at the end of this tunnel.

 Deadline.com reports that Warner Brothers is now this close to making a deal that will have Ron Howard directing at least the first movie in the planned trilogy, potentially with Javier Bardem starring as Roland Deschain, the last living member of a knightly order of gunslingers. Fans might remember that Bardem was the frontrunner while this project was still at Universal. Akiva Goldsman (who wrote the script-yes, the same man who unleashed Batman & Robin on the world) is producing with Brian Grazer and Stephen King himself.

Production is likely to start in first-quarter 2013. With three movies and two planned television entries, his would be the most ambitious genre project since The Lord of the Rings was done. It is nice to see Warner Brothers take a chance on a high risk genre project like this, especially after Disney fell hard on their face with the box office reception to John Carter this past weekend.  At least Warners understands that books still make better source material than board games.