The Gunslinger gets shot down, Universal decides not to adapt Stephen King’s The Dark Tower

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

It was one of Hollywood’s most ambitious projects in recent memory: Universal and filmmaker Ron Howard adapting Stephen King’s sprawling saga of THE DARK TOWER into three features, each bridged by a TV miniseries.

You’ll note the past tense. That’s because Universal has opted against the epic project, leaving Howard and manga-haired producing partner Brian Grazer seeking some alternate real estate to build their Dark Tower.

It’s not really a shocking development — last we heard, the studio was figuring out how to scale things back, potentially carving out the TV parts, making the movies (or everything) back-to-back, or starting with one to see how it performs. So the news of them giving the plug one good final tug was perhaps inevitable. (After all, that kind of big budget money could be spent on other valuable properties like a $200 million BATTLESHIP movie or something.)

That doesn’t mean the Gunslinger is firing blanks, though — Deadline says Warner Bros. is a potential home for Howard and company to bring the project (WB did just put up the towering stack of bucks for two HOBBIT movies).

The vast “Dark Tower” tale, spread across (so far) seven fat books, a short story and a Marvel Comics series, follows knightly Roland Deschain and his companions as they travel a crumbling magical realm seeking the Man in Black and the structure of the title.