It's been a long road for Ron Howard's planned adaptation of The Dark Tower series and it doesn't look like the first movie will go into production any time soon. With that being said, the project is far from dead and we have a new status update from Howard's producing partner, Brian Grazer.
To catch everyone up on the previous news, the original plan was plan is to produce three feature films and a limited TV series that would bridge the movies together between releases, covering Stephen King’s entire 8-book series of The Dark Tower. Previously, Javier Bardem had been set for the lead role of gunslinger Roland Deschain, but now Russell Crowe is circling the part.
The project was most recently at Warner Bros. and previously at Universal, but both passsed. Media Rights Capital has been talking about financing the project, but a new report reveals that their deal would only be to make the first movie with Russell Crowe as the star. If the first movie is successful, they would move forward with more films and there was no mention of the TV series component.
Brian Grazer revealed to Deadline that there is another option currently on the table: "as Grazer tells me that he has just been approached by a Silicon Valley investor willing to finance Dark Tower as originally constructed, Now it’s a matter of deciding what path to take."
This definitely isn't the last we've heard about The Dark Tower, but we don't expect to hear about it being greenlit in the near future. We'll keep readers posted on any developments.