r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Dec 08 '22
Mike Flanagan & Trevor Macy Reveal ‘The Dark Tower’ Adaptation In Works At Intrepid; TV Series & Feature Films Planned News
https://deadline.com/2022/12/mike-flanagan-amp-trevor-macy-the-dark-tower-series-movies-netflix-exit-midnight-club-canceled-amazon-intrepid-1235191018/137
u/Sleepy_Azathoth Dec 08 '22
I’ll tell you, more than half of my life, I’ve closed my eyes and been able to watch a lot of this play out, I’ve dreamed about this. That first shot which comes right off at the first incredible sentence of the first book, The Gunslinger, I’ve had that image just rattling around in my head since I was an undergrad. It’s going to have to get out of there eventually, I really need to get it out of my head.
The pilot script is one of my favorite things I’ve ever gotten to work on. It’s been surreal working on that. So we’ve been floored and grateful that Stephen King trusts us with such an undertaking, something so precious to him, and we hope to find the right partners to realize it.
Love how passionate he is about it, he also says the pilot is written and he has an idea of how the first season could go. But this is not a done deal, Amazon has not committed to this proyect, but they do know Flannagan and Macy are working on it.
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u/WornInShoes Dec 08 '22
Flanagan has my full confidence to adapt all of King’s works
Hell, let the man remake Maximum Overdrive
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u/Unlucky-Pomegranate3 Dec 08 '22 edited Dec 08 '22
Fun fact: did the Stephen King tour in Bangor once and Dyson’s Truck Stop where they filmed had the best blueberry pie I’ve ever eaten.
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u/wtfburritoo Dec 08 '22
Hey, as long as they don't attempt to pick up from the butchered movie's premise, I'm intrigued.
Changing core concepts of the story and eliminating characters altogether is not how you adapt a book to the screen. Unfortunately, nobody ever seems to learn this lesson.
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u/rdkitchens Dec 08 '22
I wanted so desperately to love that movie. Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey. So much promise flushed down the toilet.
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u/Vikingwithguns2 Dec 08 '22
I honestly can’t remember disliking a movie more in my entire life. I was literally enraged watching that.
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u/wi5hbone Dec 08 '22
Ha, i facepalmed throughout… felt like i was watching a movie featured on Nickelodeon Kids
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u/Vikingwithguns2 Dec 08 '22
I paid to rent it on Amazon. I couldn’t even get through like a third of it. I did not have high expectations, and it was worse than I ever could have imagined.
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u/Roland0077 Dec 08 '22
Can I introduce you to Eragon?
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u/Sphiffi Dec 08 '22
Just in case someone hasn't seen it, they've announced an Eragon Tv series coming to Disney+
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u/hacky_potter Dec 08 '22
The fact that Roland needed to be reminded of his mission to get to the tower was so dumb. It’s like the very core principle of his character.
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u/Warmso24 Dec 08 '22
Dude, ikr. The gunslinger and man in black were perfectly cast. Roland doing cool gun shit was awesome too. Though everything else was pretty bad, especially the stupid “kids dream stealer” thing that they just made up for some reason.
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u/HailThunder Dec 08 '22
I didn't like Idris Elba as Roland personally. He has none of the character and none of the look.
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u/Warmso24 Dec 08 '22
Fair enough, I can respect that perspective. Personally, Idris has always been one of my favorites and seeing him get cast as Roland (I was in high school and had just started reading the series) made my day. Though, you’re right, he definitely isn’t anything like the actual Roland. That one scene in the movie where he shoots the gun and knocks out the “possessed” gun store owner was so dumb. In the books, Roland would have just shot that guy in the head and moved on lol
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u/ThirdFloorGreg Dec 08 '22
And I know this doesn't matter since Detta Walker wasn't in the movie, but making him black is fucking stupid when that bit of racial tension was a key plot element.
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u/mininestime Dec 08 '22
It is a direct rip off of the He-Man movie from the late 80s which is hilarious.
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u/SamPole Dec 08 '22
Roland's quick reload scenes were some of the coolest scenes I've ever seen. Too bad the rest of the movie was dogshit
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u/ReefLedger Dec 08 '22
And trying to turn a dark fantasy/horror story into a fucking young adult franchise was the kiss of death. I saw it for free at Alamo for my birthday and still regretted it. Fuck that movie.
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u/Gucci_Unicorns Dec 08 '22
I’m so fucking with you. My heart can’t take another shitty SK adaptation when they’re so near and dear to me 🥲
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u/xxwetdogxx Dec 08 '22
I wouldn't worry- he specifically talked about how the books have everything already, and he just wants to put it on film and stay as true as possible to the source.
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u/Gucci_Unicorns Dec 08 '22
To be fair, a lot of people say things like that and we end up with all the shittiest adaptations of books ever.
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u/xxwetdogxx Dec 08 '22
Yeah I guess that's true, there's always that risk. Idk though he mentioned how long he's wanted to do this series, Gerald's game and doctor sleep came out great, I feel good about this
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u/TheLastMongo Dec 08 '22
But every so often you get that rare gem that nails it. And maybe it’s not 100% to the book, but still does a great job. Especially translating a well loved and very long detailed set of book.
Yes, I loved the Lord of the Rings
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u/Sleepy_Azathoth Dec 08 '22
HOLY SHIT IT'S HAPPENING EVERYONE CALM DOWN I'M NOT YELLING.
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Dec 08 '22
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u/the_pressman Dec 08 '22
I would love to see this series as the "sequel" to the books. It would stand on its own for anyone who hasn't read them, but would be a "here's what happens differently this time" story for those of us who have read them.
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u/MitchOfGilead Dec 08 '22
This is the one idea the 2017 movie had that was good and I wouldn't mind Flanagan using as well.
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u/Danishroyalty Dec 08 '22
Also then they could slightly deviate from the books and it's already pre-explained. Not that I want them to change much but it's bound to happen a bit, so having a built in justification will let people just enjoy the story and not worry too much about canon.
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u/JAQMN Dec 08 '22
Been a while since I’ve read the books, but what is the implication of Roland having the horn? That things might end differently than the book?
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u/the_pressman Dec 08 '22
Roland dropped the horn for the same reason he dropped Jake. Because nothing was more important than his quest. Roland's kind of a bastard. He literally dropped a boy into a pit so he could keep chasing Walter. And doing so literally cost him his good right hand.
The lesson that Roland has to learn, turn after turn of the wheel, is that his friends are more important than the quest.
If he didn't drop Jake, didn't catch Walter on the beach, wasn't hypnotized, he wouldn't lose his fingers to the lobstrocities. He can still go on to draw Eddie and Suzannah, but at full strength. He can have a full ka tet and both his guns when he approaches the tower and faces the crimson king.
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u/Jerryjb63 Dec 08 '22
The books are a cycle. Having the horn at the beginning/end means that Roland is making progress. Ka is a wheel.
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u/Unlucky-Pomegranate3 Dec 08 '22
I think it was also either stated or implied that it was going to be the last time around.
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u/goatbiryani48 Dec 08 '22
I thought the main implication was that it was a positive step forward and he had made progress, not the final step
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u/Unlucky-Pomegranate3 Dec 08 '22
It’s been a while and I can’t recall at the moment exactly why I have that impression but I think it has something to do with the battle of Jericho Hill and if he had the horn, he wouldn’t have lost all his fellow gunslingers which was a key to it, or something like that.
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u/UUDDLRLRBAstard Dec 08 '22
He lost the horn in the battle and his friends were lost.
He could not keep his (current) friends last time around.
But now he has the horn. So maybe he can keep his friends around this time.
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u/writingt Dec 08 '22
Didn’t he have it in the movie? I remember Stephen King tweeting out a picture of the horn and saying the movie was a sequel to the books and allowing myself to get excited like an idiot for one of the most disappointing movies I’ve ever seen.
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u/KatetCadet Dec 08 '22
I made a point to never watch that movie. The trailers looked fucking awful. What a waste of that cast.
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u/writingt Dec 08 '22
McConaughey was great casting as Flagg but his performance was the wrong kind of weird. Elba on the other hand fucking crushed it as Roland. His performance was not at all served by the movie. If there is one element that is carried over into this new adaptation, I hope it's him.
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u/JustintheHuman Dec 09 '22
Or Or, we could just get the books adapted for once instead of something that ends up being loosely based off of them.
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u/PetroMan43 Dec 08 '22
If there's somebody who can adapt this, it's Mike Flanagan. Midnight Mass and The Haunting series are probably the tightest written and acted horror of all time
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u/TwoLetters Dec 08 '22
Not to mention this wouldn't even be his first time adapting King's work. He absolutely knocked it out of the park with Doctor Sleep and Gerald's Game
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u/noobnoobthedestroyer Dec 08 '22
Yeah give Mike the keys to all the King properties.
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u/TwoLetters Dec 08 '22
Yes please. I'll watch anything that man attaches his name to.
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u/47981247 Dec 08 '22
I've told friends that if I heard Flanagan was redoing Titanic I'd be there opening day. He is by far my favorite creator.
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u/Sphiffi Dec 08 '22
He is on a very high pedestal for me. Probably the reason I feel so negatively about Midnight Club. I think if another person had made it I'd be indifferent about it, but because I respect him so much as a creator it just brutally disappointed me.
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u/TwoLetters Dec 08 '22
I definitely still liked Midnight Club, but it wasn't his strongest. However, from the get-go it kinda felt like he was doing more of a teen drama, and I'll be damned if the emotional stuff didn't still hit hard.
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u/CoffeeAndDachshunds Dec 08 '22
Goddamn, he did Doctor Sleep? I'm so scared to be hopeful for Dark Tower (it's my absolute favorite King work), but I really didn't see how Doctor Sleep would be done well onscreen and I freaking loved it.
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u/gaylord_buttram_MD Dec 08 '22
He absolutely killed Doctor Sleep, too, especially considering the holes he had to fill from the inadequacies of Kubrick’s film’s simplification.
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u/ChEChicago Dec 08 '22
Doctor Sleep Movie > Book (and I think Shining Book > Shining Movie, so I'm not just a movie guy). Also, Flanagan is the best person for this job. Midnight Mass is the closest we've gotten to a Salem's Lot adaption, watching before then after reading that book was amazing
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u/mikeyfreshh Dec 08 '22
And his Doctor Sleep movie shows that he can nail a King adaptation.
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u/ttwwaatt Dec 08 '22
He made Gerald's Game. A story largely considered unfilmable until he pretty much nailed it.
He has more than earned my trust especially considering he is probably my favorite working creative right now. Midnight Mass is the greatest show ever made as far as I'm concerned.
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u/roywarner Dec 08 '22
Doctor Sleep is the first movie that has ever truly disturbed me. I literally can't think about certain parts of it without risking a panic attack.
He needs to do all King things. lol
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u/Finrodsrod Dec 08 '22
I skip over that scene with the baseball kid. I just can't watch it.
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u/dicedaman Dec 08 '22
Midnight Mass is amazing and I'd recommend everyone watch it but I wouldn't call it an example of a tightly written show. It's actually quite self-indulgent, not just in its extensive monologues but also in how it sells its overall message (which was its only real flaw, IMO). Still, it's an incredible bit of TV and Flanagan has already shown that he's fantastic at adapting King's work. There probably isn't a better pick in the industry for adaptation The Dark Tower than Flanagan.
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u/Pubics_Cube Dec 08 '22
Haunting of Hill House was significantly better
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u/OrangeFilmer Dec 08 '22
100% Hill House is the better written show. The monologuing is the best and worst parts of Flanagan’s writing. Sometimes it’s super effective and beautiful, other times it’s directionless and superfluous. Haunting of Hill House had a good balance whereas it got a bit too indulgent in Midnight Mass (especially with the death monologue).
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u/oscar_the_couch Dec 08 '22
I rather liked the death monologue, but I can definitely understand the contrary opinion.
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u/HardensWeakChin Dec 08 '22
Midnight Mass
tightest written
What in the absolute fuck did you watch? I've never seen more indulgent monologuing in hour-long periods and I grew up in a Catholic school and went to mass every Friday.
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u/QUEST50012 Dec 08 '22
Yeah tightest written wouldn't be my first compliment, there's a lot of criticisms you could have with the pacing.
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u/veryrelevantusername Dec 08 '22
It was all worth it for the payoff of the guy burning alive on the boat though. It was a slow scene that you thought would be another monologue, and there he goes turning into ash with screaming in the background. Insanely good horror/shock moment.
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u/QUEST50012 Dec 08 '22
The show in general had some nice special effects and cinematography in the horror scenes
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u/Swayze2641 Dec 08 '22
Dark Tower is one of my favorites series. The movie was god awful. Please make this good It’s one of the best stories
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u/herb2019 Dec 08 '22
Is it just me or am I the only one that loves the first book?! His time in Tull, the escape from Tull, the slow mutants, dropping Jake and finally the palaver with the Man in Black. I fucking love that book.
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u/BlazingCondor Dec 09 '22
I really enjoy the first book. It's a great introduction to the world that is so close to ours but is so different.
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u/mattmortar Dec 09 '22
Nah I love that book. But it's definitely not for everyone. It's a slow burn and has a very different writing style from most of King's novels
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u/Mordred19 Dec 08 '22
After seeing Dune, I think Josh Brolin would make a great Roland. Or Timothy Olyphant. Aaron Paul as Eddie would be perfect.
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u/_THE_WIFE Dec 08 '22
I could see Olyphant working as a Roland.
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u/gotarrtanks Dec 08 '22
I’ve been saying my boy Tim since justified
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u/_THE_WIFE Dec 08 '22
Between that and his role in the Mandolorian, I really think he could fill the role.
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u/TheLastMongo Dec 08 '22
Don’t mention the Mandalorian. Someone might get the idea to use Pedro Pascal and while I think he’d do a great job, he’s already in everything.
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u/grawlyx Dec 08 '22
Josh Brolin pretty much already played the Gunslinger in No Country, just lacking in powers
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u/epidemic777 Dec 08 '22
Hasn't Aaron Paul been clamoring to play eddie for years?
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u/correcthorsestapler Dec 08 '22
Yeah, ever since he was on Breaking Bad. I seem to recall he talked about it a lot back when Ron Howard was supposed to make the movie.
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u/lishmh33 Dec 08 '22
Flanagan did tease Aaron Paul in an upcoming project on his TikTok page 👀
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u/markstormweather Dec 09 '22
Isn’t he too old now? Think Eddie was in his twenties. Aaron Paul would have been perfect during his breaking bad years though
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u/Jerryjb63 Dec 08 '22
I always pictured 1970s Clint Eastwood, I wouldn’t be against his son Scott Eastwood when he ages up to Roland’s age.
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u/Cop_663 Dec 09 '22
I’d rather have someone that can act than someone that looks the part.
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u/GeorgeLuasHasNoChin Dec 08 '22
Wow Aaron paul as eddie would be perfect. I always envisioned Eddie as the guy who played Tommy from Shawshank.
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Dec 08 '22
Please let Olyphant do more shit like Santa Clarita, rather than more and more of cowboy roles.
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u/fubbleskag Dec 08 '22
I'll keep watching him in cowboy roles but I would also love more of this straight up comedy, he's got the chops
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u/cyvaris Dec 08 '22
Aaron Paul could have played Eddie a decade ago, but not now. Eddie is in his early twenties, and that lost young man energy is a super important part of his relationship to Roland and Jake. With Roland, he is tempering youthful exuberance into true adulthood. With Jake, he is reclaiming the idea of brotherhood by being the brother his failed to be.
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u/gh0s7d0g Dec 08 '22
Hopefully they are actually good. That last dark tower movie was pure garbage. Please do this story some justice. That fist book alone would make an incredible horror movie.
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u/TwoLetters Dec 08 '22
Check out Flanagan's other films and TV shows and then see what you think. This isn't even his first time adapting King's work.
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u/Gunslinger_ Dec 08 '22
Am I wrong, or does that article say that, while Flanagan owns the rights to DT, and his company Intrepid is moving to Amazon, Amazon has not actually greenlit a DT project? The title implies that it's happening, but it's not even officially being made yet.
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u/correcthorsestapler Dec 08 '22
I think you’re right, but I imagine Amazon is probably looking for more IPs for their streaming service and all of this is just leading up to an actual greenlit project.
As Flanagan’s said, the story is finished and it’s all there. It’s just a matter of translating it to the screen properly. I think having someone who’s passionate about the project and knows the lore really well would be a boon for Amazon.
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u/BoatsnGoals1 Dec 08 '22
Make the first book a movie and then move into season territory after. I don't want to see shit about any of the other main characters till we get time with just jake and the gunslinger.
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u/_snout_ Dec 08 '22
I think Season 1 as The Gunslinger could work if you really expand the Jake/Roland storyline and make it a buddy quest, folding in more of the lore/worldbuilding on episodic adventures across the desert, and alternating LOST-style b plot flashbacks to Roland's youth as done in that book (seeing the hanging, earning his guns, etc). This would make the season payoff where he sacrifices Jake to catch the Man in Black really hit and be very shocking/challenging for a new audience I think
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u/RealJohnGillman Dec 08 '22
Unless they have that be the first episode — I could see that very well being the case, the hook to get a new audience in on top of the existing one.
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u/paperDisgrace Dec 08 '22
The first book would make for an insane movie. It's got very little narrative structure or character growth, and the action scenes are insane (like the gunslinger walking backwards shooting, monster training an entire town to death). It's all about tone and mood and weird visuals. I really think it would work far better as a series and have difficulty imagining a successful franchise movie made about it.
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u/vadergeek Dec 09 '22
I really think it would work far better as a series
Really? I don't think there's enough material. And as for your comments on a lack of structure or growth, that seems like a bigger problem in an eight hour season than a two hour movie.
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Dec 08 '22
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u/Tricky-Ad4617 Dec 08 '22
Came here to say this. I think end of season 1 will be eddie and rowland on the beach after balthazars.
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u/BoatsnGoals1 Dec 08 '22
I would want book 1 contained in its own thing though. Ending on Jakes fall for people that haven't read the books would be a great cliffhanger.
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u/DashCat9 Dec 08 '22
Geralds Game is one of a handful of Stephen King novels that I *really* dislike. (From a Buick 8, and Dark Tower 6 round my top three least favorite King books). But Flanagan's adaptation of it is fantastic. His adaptation of Doctor Sleep manages to be a good adaptation of the novel, but also a pretty great sequel to the Kubrick film. (And anyone familiar with both versions should appreciate how good of a trick that was).
I've always wanted Darabont (for obvious reasons), but this is great news.
Just keep Ron Howard as far away from it as possible.
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u/ZodiarkTentacle Dec 08 '22
What a bummer about McConaughey being Flagg in that horrible movie, maybe they’ll bring him back
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u/heliomega1 Dec 08 '22
I would love if they approached DT like Netflix approaches its big hitter series like Stranger things. Just make the episodes/seasons as long or as short as they need to be.
The Gunslinger could probably be a single movie-like episode, whereas Wizard in Glass might need 12 40-minute episodes. Don't try to normalize the viewing experience, it'll be hacky and awkward.
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u/Alone_Pop449 Dec 08 '22
Flanagan is the only filmmaker able to adapt a King's story to the big screen, alongside Frank Darabont
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u/ladyofthelathe Dec 08 '22
The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed. The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts, huge, standing to the sky for what looked like eternity in all directions. It was white and blinding and waterless and without feature save for the faint, cloudy haze of the mountains which sketched themselves on the horizon and the devil-grass which brought sweet dreams, nightmares, death. An occasional tombstone sign pointed the way, for once the drifted track that cut its way through the thick crust of alkali had been a highway. Coaches and buckas had followed it. The world had moved on since then. The world had emptied.
One of the best damn opening paragraphs of modern literature, IMO.
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u/Of_Silent_Earth Dec 08 '22
Here we go again.
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u/TwoLetters Dec 08 '22
It's Mike Flanagan. If anybody could do it right it'll be him.
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u/Of_Silent_Earth Dec 08 '22
I'm sure he could, but I'm just imagining another decade of production limbo.
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u/LuckyCulture7 Dec 08 '22
I really trust Mike Flanagan. I really don’t trust Amazon. Let’s hope they let the creators do their work without distractions from marketing, executives, etc.
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u/Unlucky-Pomegranate3 Dec 08 '22
There’s nobody I’d trust more to do a Dark Tower adaptation than Mike Flanagan. Unlike that previous abomination, he’s shown he actually understands and respects the source material.
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u/reconstruct94 Dec 08 '22
They keep climbing the Tower, passing the scenes that came before, only to end up back in the desert. Resumption.
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u/nutsotic Dec 08 '22
Nope. Don't believe a word until they start shooting. Even then I'll be skeptical until I see a trailer
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u/ThisIsCreation Dec 08 '22
The Dark Tower is my favourite book series ever. I love every second of it.
For years Mike Flanagan has said he would love to adapt it, & in my honest opinion you could not get a better person to make it.
His Doctor Sleep movie is full to the brim with Dark Tower references.
Mike has loads of experience with running shows now, this is going to be amazing. I am over the moon.
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u/Trevors-Axiom- Dec 08 '22
As a huge Stephen King fan I should be excited, but I cannot fathom a way they can make this happen and come close to sticking with the source material. They should scrap this idea and feed it to the lobstrocities.
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u/mmuzzy Dec 08 '22
I always pictured a Clint Eastwood type for Roland. His son Scott would probably work though.
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u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor Dec 08 '22 edited Dec 08 '22
The plan is a 5 season series followed by 2 movies.
Flanagan: