Shame that James Cromwell died, he'd make a good Father Callahan.
Um... He's not dead.
Are you sure?
Yeah, I just poked him and he made a noise.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I really hope they get this right, because it would be so easy to fuck it up.
The casting news is enough to give me hope, but boy. I'd hate to see it lose too much weirdness, but I'd also hate to see it sink and die because it's too weird.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Is McConaughey also Flagg in the upcoming Stand thing?
Who played Callahan in the Salem's Lot adaptations and are they still around?
Actually, I wonder how the rights work for that sort of thing. Normally character rights go with the story where they're introduced, but I wonder if King ever made exceptions to that for his shared universe characters.
As for structure, I'll be pretty sad if they actually skip The Gunslinger completely and end the first film with the first part of 3, with Jake being rescued; any DT intro film that doesn't end with the one-two punch of Roland letting Jake die to catch Flagg and Flagg being only one more step on the way to the tower is a bad decsion, I think.
That said, I'm wondering if what they're actually gonna do is have the first film be The Gunslinger, but just move some of the establishing material from 2 in NY into 1, so that Roland has visions of Detta im the speaking ring and so on, so cross-cutting can give Jake more of a perspective on this part of his story and so there's a reason for the series' other two main characters to be in the franchise at the start.
That would be fine. Part of adapting this is getting the chance to rework it slightly for tonal and narrative consistency.
The other reason to adapt this series is so we can see gunslingers fight a giant rotting robot bear named after a book. You know, priorities.
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
There's an upcoming Stand thing!? Awww snap.
And hope so. McConaughey as Flagg would be perfect for The Stand.
Oh brilliant
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
I bet they could do the entirety of the Gunslinger in the credits sequence. Having the movie start with a long credits sequence showing a montage of Roland going through all the stuff while Hey Jude played would be good. Then the music dies down and Roland is just staring at a door on the beach. Or a lobstrosity.
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
I bet they could do the entirety of the Gunslinger in the credits sequence. Having the movie start with a long credits sequence showing a montage of Roland going through all the stuff while Hey Jude played would be good. Then the music dies down and Roland is just staring at a door on the beach. Or a lobstrosity.
Oh god no.
First movie just needs the stark slow pace of a western, punctuated with the weird.
I want a 90 minute film just for the gunslinger. I need the moment of Jakes death to have weight. It would suck if that all ended up in a credits montage.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I bet they could do the entirety of the Gunslinger in the credits sequence. Having the movie start with a long credits sequence showing a montage of Roland going through all the stuff while Hey Jude played would be good. Then the music dies down and Roland is just staring at a door on the beach. Or a lobstrosity.
Oh god no.
First movie just needs the stark slow pace of a western, punctuated with the weird.
I want a 90 minute film just for the gunslinger. I need the moment of Jakes death to have weight. It would suck if that all ended up in a credits montage.
The Gunslinger is an extremely cinematic novel. You could very easily adapt it as-is for a standalone screenplay, it has terrific atmosphere, and each of the five acts is nice and tight.
Act 1 sets up who Roland is (emphasized by the Tull massacre).
Act 2 sets up Roland and Jake as a team (emphasized by Jake taking care of Roland when he nearly dies in the desert).
Act 3 shows Roland's growing attachment to Jake when they reach easier travelling in the shadows of the mountains.
Then, at the story's midpoint, the MiB shows up for real and lets Roland know that if he wants to catch him - and apparently the MiB wants him to catch him, for reasons of his own - he'll have to sacrifice Jake to do so.
Act 4 describes the growing tension and mutual resentment between Roland and Jake - Roland is slowly dehumanizing Jake while pretending not to do so, and Jake is sharp enough to realize he's ultimately a bargaining chip, not a human being, in Roland's mind; Roland's rescue of Jake from the mutants reflect his unsuccessful denial of this plain and evident fact.
Finally, at the climax, the Man in Black forces Roland to make a choice, and he sacrifices Jake to continue his quest, and is rewarded with his first real knowledge of what the Tower is.
The DT series is pretty messy as a whole, but the first book is plotted damn well, and there is very little fat that could or should be trimmed. We might see all that stuff in anachronic order, for the sake of the rest of the story, but those beats are so good I will be extremely surprised if they aren't presented in the course of the first movie.
I really want to know what kind of structure they're going for with this thing. I really hope they don't do a single movie. Gunslinger either has to be condensed to something like flashbacks or a credits sequence or deserves its own movie.
Now I want to watch Six String Samurai again. That's basically a Dark Tower movie.
I look forward to watching this probably inferior movie of a book I will never have the courage to read
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I feel like Gunslinger and MAYBE the opening of Drawing of the Three (Roland losing his fingers) for Movie 1.
Tighten up Drawing and Wastelands and combine them into a single movie, with the ending being arrival in Topeka rather than Blaine being a cliffhanger.
W&G gets its own movie. No question.
I always felt Wolves and Song were the weakest books of the series by far, and I think you could drop a lot of the Wolves mystery buildup and Callahan flashbacks and combine the two of them. (though how hilarious would it be if Callahan is telling his story as footage from the 1979 version of Salem's Lot plays)
Dark Tower gets its own movie.
There was a steam sig here. It's gone now.
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SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
I linked to this in the general movies thread, and I guess I'll link it here since there's discussion about where the first movie should begin.
King went on to reveal that the Dark Tower movie will open with the first line from the book as read above, but that the film itself will jump into the middle of the story instead of starting with the first book.
“[The movie] starts in media res, in the middle of the story instead of at the beginning,” King says. “Which may upset some of the fans a little bit, but they’ll get behind it, because it is the story.”
Arcel went on to tease the film further, saying: “A lot of it takes place in our day, in the modern world.”
This could mean that the film will be adapting The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands, the novel that sees Roland and his ka-tet members Eddie and Susannah attempting to bring a young boy, Jake, to their world from New York City.
Yeah that's what makes me think they'd do Gunslinger in either flashbacks or an animated/musical sequence or something. They might just not show it at all and talk about it a bit. Have him tell Eddie and Odetta about Jake and then be really surprised by door 3. I can't imagine they'll go past Drawing of the Three to start. Maybe open with Jake in New York getting pushed. Have him wake up at the waystation and run into Roland.
I bet they could do the entirety of the Gunslinger in the credits sequence. Having the movie start with a long credits sequence showing a montage of Roland going through all the stuff while Hey Jude played would be good. Then the music dies down and Roland is just staring at a door on the beach. Or a lobstrosity.
Dad-a-chik?
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
I suppose avoiding starting with the gunslinger is probably to keep people guessing about whether Roland has the magic trumpet of tower opening or if he left it on the bus again.
Which is a shame as the gunslinger was by far and away my favourite of the books
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
In 2010 director Ron Howard began trying to assemble a multi-platform approach to filming it, with Javier Bardem in the lead role of Roland. Howard’s innovative plan was to have a trio of movies that would follow the gunslinger’s quest to reach the tower, which would be accompanied by a cable TV series that could serve as a kind of prequel, filling in backstory.
[...]
Goldsman’s script became the foundation for the new film, and King says a successful movie could revive Howard’s broader plan. That’s one reason for saving the earlier part of the narrative, depicting Roland’s younger days. “They’re still holding on to this idea that they can do a TV series, and they’ve got it pegged for that,” King says.
This seems somewhat absurd given that they're supposed to be shooting in 7 weeks and releasing the first film in January of next year (but that's a ridiculous release date for a big franchise picture, so I have a hard time believing that won't change). You couldn't get a TV series up and running before the release of the 2nd film; it's just really, really messy if you're not planning both sides out that far in advance.
2)
Although this is not a part of the first film, Arcel says he would want the author to eventually play himself. But King says no way: “I’m too old.”
So as of now that much meta is staying in, which is kinda surprising to me. (Also I feel like they could go the Tron: Legacy route and have King play himself but aged down with CG, if they wanted.)
King went on to reveal that the Dark Tower movie will open with the first line from the book as read above, but that the film itself will jump into the middle of the story instead of starting with the first book.
“[The movie] starts in media res, in the middle of the story instead of at the beginning,” King says. “Which may upset some of the fans a little bit, but they’ll get behind it, because it is the story.”
Arcel went on to tease the film further, saying: “A lot of it takes place in our day, in the modern world.”
This could mean that the film will be adapting The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands, the novel that sees Roland and his ka-tet members Eddie and Susannah attempting to bring a young boy, Jake, to their world from New York City.
I'm happy with this, if only because I was worried that audiences and/or studio execs might not be able to handle Jake's arc in The Gunslinger. So they might muck it up somehow in a misguided effort to make the story more palatable. If they present it as a series of flashbacks or something, there's a better chance they'll keep the story intact.
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TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
King went on to reveal that the Dark Tower movie will open with the first line from the book as read above, but that the film itself will jump into the middle of the story instead of starting with the first book.
“[The movie] starts in media res, in the middle of the story instead of at the beginning,” King says. “Which may upset some of the fans a little bit, but they’ll get behind it, because it is the story.”
Arcel went on to tease the film further, saying: “A lot of it takes place in our day, in the modern world.”
This could mean that the film will be adapting The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands, the novel that sees Roland and his ka-tet members Eddie and Susannah attempting to bring a young boy, Jake, to their world from New York City.
and suddenly the excitement I had for this movie just fell away entirely
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RhalloTonnyOf the BrownlandsRegistered Userregular
edited March 2016
The thing is that The Gunslinger is sparse, evocative, and feels like an actual journey.
Roland/Jake's "Go now, there are other worlds than these" moment is so fundamental to understanding the lengths that Roland will go to. That first introduction to his scary, unrelenting dedication is what sets up the interpretation of the end that makes it better than "it was all a dream." Even more, it's a great introduction to the fractured time-space setting and the bizarre world.
Lobstrosities and Roland confusing a neon Leaning Tower of Pisa sign for The Tower make for more of a fever dream, one that I'm not sure is the best intro.
It's just odd that they won't start at the part of the story that immediately grabbed everyone's attention.
I mean, start off with "The man in black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed" and show a little montage of Roland chasing him through the desert. Have the movie start with him catching up after a bit and they palaver, Flagg mentioning Jake and hinting at what happened. Roland wakes after the palaver and heads off to the door he can baaaaarely see at the end of the beach, but is waylaid by lobstrosities. Then the door goes to Eddie. Would be a good start, lots of room to explore what happened in the Gunslinger later.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Jake's death in The Gunslinger is a gut punch. I'm not sure how you can start in the middle of the series (with Jake alive) and have that moment work. It'd work as a MST3K moment though:
Jake: Go then. There are other worlds than these.
Roland moves on, Jake falls to his death.
Crow: Don't worry, he gets better!
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
I can't imagine they'll start past the Drawing of the Three. Having to explain where you got these obviously out of place characters without showing it would be very difficult. I imagine a brooding Roland who is upset over the loss of Jake being shocked when he gets to door number 3. As viewers, we'd have heard of a boy he sacrificed or seen little flashbacks in a dream or something.
Jake's death in The Gunslinger is a gut punch. I'm not sure how you can start in the middle of the series (with Jake alive) and have that moment work. It'd work as a MST3K moment though:
Jake: Go then. There are other worlds than these.
Roland moves on, Jake falls to his death.
Crow: Don't worry, he gets better!
This is all assuming we know Jake is alive before we actually see the moment he dies.
I would guess that it will start closer to the beginning of book 2 as SG speculates, and we'll get little hints/flashbacks of The Gunslinger. Maybe even just have the major beats of that entire book interwoven as flashbacks into the movie (Tull, meeting Jake, them developing their relationship, and eventually Jake's death) as Roland draws Eddie and Odetta through. Then the climax of the movie is the confrontation with the Pusher and having to confront Jake's death (at the Pusher's hands, and at his own).
That way you never get to Jake being alive again until you've already had to deal with the gutpunch of Roland's memory of his death. The only question is, do you go all the way through to drawing Jake into mid-world, or do you save that for another movie?
Actually, I wonder how the rights work for that sort of thing. Normally character rights go with the story where they're introduced, but I wonder if King ever made exceptions to that for his shared universe characters.
Nope. King was very smart (at least IMHO) when it came to rights for his works; he's always maintained fundamental rights, only offering-up what was needed to studios that wanted to do a given adaptation. That's why you don't see a whole bunch of King related merchandise floating around, and also why the movie adaptations are pretty low rent (the Lucas model isn't really possible when you've only got the rights to make a movie, not also the rights to make a bunch of toys / novelty mugs / whatever).
So, on the one hand, we don't have a bunch of high production value films based on (say) The Stand or Eyes of the Dragon. But on the other hand, when something like this rolls around, you know it's got to be a passion project.
I share the disappointment that the first film isn't going to just start at the beginning, but I also trust the director & King's approval of the film's direction.
I saw a few references to the original versions of the books, if I wanted to pick these up now on Kindle, would I be getting the revised editions? Where there significant rewrites?
I saw a few references to the original versions of the books, if I wanted to pick these up now on Kindle, would I be getting the revised editions? Where there significant rewrites?
The Gunslinger has a revised edition that clarifies and adds a lot of detail. It's way more readable and a lot better than the original. The other 7 don't have rewrites, but King has said he's basically never done with The Dark Tower and would like to make revised editions of those too, but probably won't because holy shit that's a lot of effort. Definitely get the revised Gunslinger over the original.
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Big DookieSmells great!Houston, TXRegistered Userregular
Also, I strongly disagree with the general sentiment of Wolves of the Calla being a weak book. It's probably my second favorite of the entire series, right behind The Waste Lands (though Wizard and Glass is a very close third). It was when we start getting heavily into the meta aspects of the series, but it's restrained just enough to keep it from going into absurdity as it does in the next two books. On top of that, the story itself - the mystery behind the wolves attacking the Calla, why the children return so damaged, and the presence of Father Callahan - is top notch. If I had to pick only one book to go back and re-read from the series by itself, it would be Wolves of the Calla.
I feel like as a series The Dark Tower is way too uneven for me to recommend it unreservedly. That said, the parts I loved I really loved, and there were enough of those that I'm excited for this.
Black Roland? Pretty cool. (this means we get a black Steven Deschain and Gabrielle?) I mean I'm not sure it *adds* anything; and it might even take something away. But I like Idris Elba and I'm all for black actors getting interesting roles in general.
Man, McConaughey is a heavy hitter and a huge name. Elba too. They aren't playing around with this shit
Posts
Um... He's not dead.
Are you sure?
pleasepaypreacher.net
Well, unless wikipedia, IMDb, and a Google news search (which had a reference to him protesting in December) have decided to not mention it.
He'd be a terrible Roland, he's got a face that longs to talk.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Yeah, I just poked him and he made a noise.
The casting news is enough to give me hope, but boy. I'd hate to see it lose too much weirdness, but I'd also hate to see it sink and die because it's too weird.
Who played Callahan in the Salem's Lot adaptations and are they still around?
Actually, I wonder how the rights work for that sort of thing. Normally character rights go with the story where they're introduced, but I wonder if King ever made exceptions to that for his shared universe characters.
As for structure, I'll be pretty sad if they actually skip The Gunslinger completely and end the first film with the first part of 3, with Jake being rescued; any DT intro film that doesn't end with the one-two punch of Roland letting Jake die to catch Flagg and Flagg being only one more step on the way to the tower is a bad decsion, I think.
That said, I'm wondering if what they're actually gonna do is have the first film be The Gunslinger, but just move some of the establishing material from 2 in NY into 1, so that Roland has visions of Detta im the speaking ring and so on, so cross-cutting can give Jake more of a perspective on this part of his story and so there's a reason for the series' other two main characters to be in the franchise at the start.
That would be fine. Part of adapting this is getting the chance to rework it slightly for tonal and narrative consistency.
The other reason to adapt this series is so we can see gunslingers fight a giant rotting robot bear named after a book. You know, priorities.
And hope so. McConaughey as Flagg would be perfect for The Stand.
Hile Jake!
Hile Oy!
Hile Alain!
Hile Cuthbert!
... I'm fucking giddy.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Oh god no.
First movie just needs the stark slow pace of a western, punctuated with the weird.
I want a 90 minute film just for the gunslinger. I need the moment of Jakes death to have weight. It would suck if that all ended up in a credits montage.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
The Gunslinger is an extremely cinematic novel. You could very easily adapt it as-is for a standalone screenplay, it has terrific atmosphere, and each of the five acts is nice and tight.
Act 1 sets up who Roland is (emphasized by the Tull massacre).
Act 2 sets up Roland and Jake as a team (emphasized by Jake taking care of Roland when he nearly dies in the desert).
Act 3 shows Roland's growing attachment to Jake when they reach easier travelling in the shadows of the mountains.
Then, at the story's midpoint, the MiB shows up for real and lets Roland know that if he wants to catch him - and apparently the MiB wants him to catch him, for reasons of his own - he'll have to sacrifice Jake to do so.
Act 4 describes the growing tension and mutual resentment between Roland and Jake - Roland is slowly dehumanizing Jake while pretending not to do so, and Jake is sharp enough to realize he's ultimately a bargaining chip, not a human being, in Roland's mind; Roland's rescue of Jake from the mutants reflect his unsuccessful denial of this plain and evident fact.
Finally, at the climax, the Man in Black forces Roland to make a choice, and he sacrifices Jake to continue his quest, and is rewarded with his first real knowledge of what the Tower is.
The DT series is pretty messy as a whole, but the first book is plotted damn well, and there is very little fat that could or should be trimmed. We might see all that stuff in anachronic order, for the sake of the rest of the story, but those beats are so good I will be extremely surprised if they aren't presented in the course of the first movie.
Now I want to watch Six String Samurai again. That's basically a Dark Tower movie.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Tighten up Drawing and Wastelands and combine them into a single movie, with the ending being arrival in Topeka rather than Blaine being a cliffhanger.
W&G gets its own movie. No question.
I always felt Wolves and Song were the weakest books of the series by far, and I think you could drop a lot of the Wolves mystery buildup and Callahan flashbacks and combine the two of them. (though how hilarious would it be if Callahan is telling his story as footage from the 1979 version of Salem's Lot plays)
Dark Tower gets its own movie.
The movie will not start with the first book.
My Backloggery
hey...
This doesn't necessarily bother me as long as we still get feudal cowboy on a grail quest through an apocalyptic wasteland.
Dad-a-chik?
Which is a shame as the gunslinger was by far and away my favourite of the books
1)
This seems somewhat absurd given that they're supposed to be shooting in 7 weeks and releasing the first film in January of next year (but that's a ridiculous release date for a big franchise picture, so I have a hard time believing that won't change). You couldn't get a TV series up and running before the release of the 2nd film; it's just really, really messy if you're not planning both sides out that far in advance.
2)
So as of now that much meta is staying in, which is kinda surprising to me. (Also I feel like they could go the Tron: Legacy route and have King play himself but aged down with CG, if they wanted.)
I'm happy with this, if only because I was worried that audiences and/or studio execs might not be able to handle Jake's arc in The Gunslinger. So they might muck it up somehow in a misguided effort to make the story more palatable. If they present it as a series of flashbacks or something, there's a better chance they'll keep the story intact.
and suddenly the excitement I had for this movie just fell away entirely
Roland/Jake's "Go now, there are other worlds than these" moment is so fundamental to understanding the lengths that Roland will go to. That first introduction to his scary, unrelenting dedication is what sets up the interpretation of the end that makes it better than "it was all a dream." Even more, it's a great introduction to the fractured time-space setting and the bizarre world.
Lobstrosities and Roland confusing a neon Leaning Tower of Pisa sign for The Tower make for more of a fever dream, one that I'm not sure is the best intro.
It's just odd that they won't start at the part of the story that immediately grabbed everyone's attention.
Jake: Go then. There are other worlds than these.
Roland moves on, Jake falls to his death.
Crow: Don't worry, he gets better!
Why do you say that? From what I hear he only went under a pen name to try and make it on his own but the cat is out of the bag now.
This is all assuming we know Jake is alive before we actually see the moment he dies.
I would guess that it will start closer to the beginning of book 2 as SG speculates, and we'll get little hints/flashbacks of The Gunslinger. Maybe even just have the major beats of that entire book interwoven as flashbacks into the movie (Tull, meeting Jake, them developing their relationship, and eventually Jake's death) as Roland draws Eddie and Odetta through. Then the climax of the movie is the confrontation with the Pusher and having to confront Jake's death (at the Pusher's hands, and at his own).
That way you never get to Jake being alive again until you've already had to deal with the gutpunch of Roland's memory of his death. The only question is, do you go all the way through to drawing Jake into mid-world, or do you save that for another movie?
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
Nope. King was very smart (at least IMHO) when it came to rights for his works; he's always maintained fundamental rights, only offering-up what was needed to studios that wanted to do a given adaptation. That's why you don't see a whole bunch of King related merchandise floating around, and also why the movie adaptations are pretty low rent (the Lucas model isn't really possible when you've only got the rights to make a movie, not also the rights to make a bunch of toys / novelty mugs / whatever).
So, on the one hand, we don't have a bunch of high production value films based on (say) The Stand or Eyes of the Dragon. But on the other hand, when something like this rolls around, you know it's got to be a passion project.
I share the disappointment that the first film isn't going to just start at the beginning, but I also trust the director & King's approval of the film's direction.
The Gunslinger has a revised edition that clarifies and adds a lot of detail. It's way more readable and a lot better than the original. The other 7 don't have rewrites, but King has said he's basically never done with The Dark Tower and would like to make revised editions of those too, but probably won't because holy shit that's a lot of effort. Definitely get the revised Gunslinger over the original.
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
Black Roland? Pretty cool.
Man, McConaughey is a heavy hitter and a huge name. Elba too. They aren't playing around with this shit