The film adaptation of Stephen King‘s The Dark Tower hit cinemas in 2017 with fevered anticipation. But it flopped at the box office, and received mostly negative reviews. That halted the plans for any potential franchise, and it has also made Amazon decide against a potential TV adaptation.
Amazon opted to go with the pilot-first route for The Dark Tower rather than a full series order from the get-go, which wasn’t a good sign in and of itself, but the failure of the 2017 film always made it unlikely that the series would be picked up. This latest setback is just an extension of that.
Executive producer/showrunner Glen Mazzara, who adapted King’s book series, is reportedly shopping the pilot scripts out to potential buyers. In a series of tweets, he said: “I’m incredibly proud of the work our cast and crew did on The Dark Tower pilot. They are an immensely creative group of people who gave it their all and took big risks. I know they delivered big time. Tbh, I wouldn’t change a thing”.
“It’s a tough business but I’m incredibly lucky to have worked on The Dark Tower for the past three years. I started in March 2017. I believe @StephenKing wrote it over 37 years. See you in 2054″.
Amazon passing on the series was likely a combination of factors. The performance of the film certainly didn’t help, but maybe the pilot itself wasn’t that great, and the fact that the streamer already has other fantasy shows in the works – Lord Of The Rings and Wheel Of Time – probably hurt as well.
The pilot reportedly attempted to distance itself from its big screen counterpart with a complete recasting, and a story set well before the events of the film, opting to tell Gunslinger Roland Deschain’s origin story so that audiences might get to know him first, instead of being flung headfirst into the insane worlds of King’s overarching series.
It’s possible that somewhere down the line, we’ll get to see what Mazzara and his crew came up with. Perhaps once memories of the disappointing Dark Tower movie have subsided, Amazon will release the pilot as a standalone film or something.
Considering the absurdly long list of King adaptations greenlit since the success of IT, there were always going to be projects that failed. Not every adaptation is going to work, and many are going to struggle to stand out against some of King’s better known work.
The literary appeal of The Dark Tower is clear, but it might be something that is destined to stay on the page.
#Peace.Love.TheDarkTower
