Stephen King's Epic "The Dark Tower" - Part 2

[harlequinade]

Is at least Junkie XL's music good?

 

[Flint Marko]

As someone without any knowledge of the book, this looked awful from the first teaser. I'd be shocked if this turned out any other way. Not happy it's failing because I'm close to several people who really like the books and were wanting it to be a hit, but I'm glad that Sony's ineptitude is becoming more and more undeniable.

 

[FunkMiller]

As someone without any knowledge of the book, this looked awful from the first teaser. I'd be shocked if this turned out any other way. Not happy it's failing because I'm close to several people who really like the books and were wanting it to be a hit, but I'm glad that Sony's ineptitude is becoming more and more undeniable.

Actually, as a book fan, I'm quite pleased it's an unmitigated disaster. Better that than a movie that is poor, but just okay enough to ensure the set-up limps on into sequels. At least this way it'll bomb hard, and any chance of continuing will be dead in the water. Then hopefully we can get a reboot several years down the line that does a better job from the get-go, involving people who give a **** about the source material.

 

[elgaz]

Not surprised at all at the response so far, most of us here expected it.

Why they went the movie route at all is beyond me, this story is a saga and an ongoing TV series would be perfect for it - especially on a more adult network like HBO.

Game of Thrones has surely proven that audiences can buy into hugely complicated and interweaving storylines combined with fantasy, deaths of popular characters, twists and turns and heroes who aren't just black and white in their motivations.

 

[Gabe99]

Variety AUGUST 1, 2017:
‘The Dark Tower’: Clashing Visions, Brutal Test Screenings Plagued Journey to Big Screen

With millions of loyal readers and a fantastical setting, Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower” book series has tantalized Hollywood. The movie business is always on the prowl for the next “Lord of the Rings” or “Harry Potter.” King’s novels, about a mysterious gunslinger on a quest to save the universe, had the markings of a potential blockbuster.

However, getting the promising adaptation to the big screen took more than a decade and suffered several setbacks along the way, as one top director and screenwriter after another — including J.J. Abrams, who originally optioned the material — tried and failed to wrest the author’s eight-book opus into a workable film. After Universal Pictures scrapped plans to make a series of interconnected films and television shows with Ron Howard running point, Modi Wiczyk, co-founder of Media Rights Capital, set the project up under a co-financing deal with Sony Pictures.

In 2015, MRC and Sony jointly announced they had found a way into the story and tapped Nikolaj Arcel, the Oscar-nominated Danish filmmaker behind “A Royal Affair,” to direct the movie.

With “The Dark Tower” poised to debut this weekend, multiple sources told Variety that the creative process — particularly in post-production — was plagued with problems and clashing visions. Wiczyk and Sony Pictures chief Tom Rothman downplay any suggestion that the movie faced major hurdles.

But when Arcel delivered an early cut of the picture that alarmed Wiczyk and Rothman, they considered bringing in a more experienced filmmaker to recut it. While the two men deny this and insist their joint contribution was limited to giving the director notes, one insider said that Rothman spent hours in the editing bay offering his input.

Arcel seemed the ideal director on paper — “A Royal Affair” had earned an Oscar nomination and proved he could handle lavish spectacle, while his screenwriting work on “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” demonstrated he could adapt beloved novels. Also, he was a big fan of King’s, enlisting his books to improve his English.

Arcel, however, had never worked on this complicated a project, and he found himself in over his head on the $66 million fantasy film, say several sources.

Three blind screenings last October, shown before final effects work had been completed, confirmed fears that the picture was a mess. Audiences at the test screenings couldn’t understand the mythology and rated the film poorly. A classic tale of good and evil, “The Dark Tower” stars Idris Elba as the last Gunslinger, who is locked in an eternal battle with a sorcerer known as the Man in Black, portrayed by Matthew McConaughey.

Sources say the companies ultimately opted not to enlist another filmmaker (one explained it would have been too costly), but the executives from the studios remained heavily involved. Ron Howard, a “Dark Tower” producer, who had hoped to direct the film when it was set up at Universal, advised Arcel on the music, and co-writer and producer Akiva Goldsman helped wrangle the film into shape.

Arcel insists he wasn’t sidelined.

“On a film with two studios and powerful producers, obviously there is much passionate creative debate on how to work certain ideas or beats,” he said. “But I felt supported throughout, and they all looked to me for answers. If someone had jumped into my editing room and taken over — I would have left instantly.”

Rothman and Wiczyk say they were impressed with Arcel’s work, with the Sony chief saying he “hopes to” collaborate with the director on future projects. Wiczyk also hit back at claims the film was troubled.

“We shot this on time and on budget,” he said. “We didn’t go over our schedule by even a day.” Calling his company “artist driven,” he added, “We would never marginalize or remove a director or dare to edit a film.”

Sources paint a more acrimonious picture of the production, one that was enabled by the unique nature of the deal that Sony struck with MRC — a pact that allowed competing power centers to emerge. The two companies split costs, and in return MRC was granted “kill rights” on everything from the marketing campaign to the final cut of the picture. If one company didn’t like a trailer or a cut of the film, it had to be scrapped, making it difficult to achieve consensus. It’s a rare type of partnership, with the kind of sign-off that few production companies enjoy. That led to a case of “too many cooks in the kitchen,” according to one insider. King also had a great deal of input. In return for the rights to his work, he retained veto approval of almost every aspect of the film.

Sony and MRC admit “The Dark Tower” defied easy translation. The books move forward and backward in time and reference multiple genres, from gangster films to Arthurian legends. It was a struggle to combine parts of several books into an 88-minute film that appeals to both King devotees and mainstream audiences.

Sony and MRC spent $6 million on reshoots to fill in more backstory about Elba’s character’s hatred for McConaughey’s Man in Black. In addition, to better familiarize audiences with Mid-World, the film’s magical setting, five minutes of exposition were cut and a new scene was shot to combine ideas that had been sprinkled throughout the picture.

Sony’s Rothman believes that the narrative complexity will ultimately help the film connect with audiences. “It’s a fantasy film and so yes, it’s complicated; it’s intricate and ambitious, but that’s a good thing because with the complexity of the stuff on television now, theater audiences want ambition,” he said.

On social media there’s been speculation about the quality of “The Dark Tower” given that the studio moved the picture premiere from February to July, only to push its release back by an additional week. Despite the mixed buzz, “The Dark Tower” is tracking to open in the mid-$20 million range. It also has the support of an important critic. In the novels, someone who acts dishonorably is said to have “forgotten the faces of his fathers.” After seeing the film, King sent Arcel an email praising him. “You have remembered the faces of your fathers,” he wrote.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

I am getting a bad feeling this could be successful and we may get more of this garbage. Please no world!

This sounds truly, truly awful, like Dragon levels of bad.

 

[Rowsdower!]

Wow. Reading through the spoilers, anyone who ever tried to tell me what a "brilliant" decision it was to make this a "sequel" to the books so that the studio "can do what they want with it" can promptly go f*** themselves.

One of the greatest fantasy/sci-fi series ever written, reduced to garbage. Sony is as Sony does.

 

[Roose Bolton]

 

[FunkMiller]

Wow. Reading through the spoilers, anyone who ever tried to tell me what a "brilliant" decision it was to make this a "sequel" to the books so that the studio "can do what they want with it" can promptly go f*** themselves.

One of the greatest fantasy/sci-fi series ever written, reduced to garbage. Sony is as Sony does.

Yes. This gave them the capacity to make whatever changes they liked to dumb this down to the lowest common denominator.

...although, lest we forget, Stephen King approved this dog****.

 

[Rowsdower!]

Yes. This gave them the capacity to make whatever changes they liked to dumb this down to the lowest common denominator.

...although, lest we forget, Stephen King approved this dog****.

Yeah. I love King but he has to take some blame for giving this schlock his seal of approval.

 

[The Guard]

They're talking about a TV series today, developed by Glen Mazzara. Could be a PR thing.

 

[Faora]

Spoiler

Roland kills the Walter and blows up Walter's fortress with one bullet (not kidding). Because Jake's mom and step-dad are killed by Walter, Roland takes Jake back to Mid-World to train him to be a gunslinger.

 

[Guts]

I know, right? One of the greatest literary openings to a book ever, and they've dumped it.

I spoiling the **** out of myself so I'm never even tempted to see this travesty.

Apparently:

Spoiler

Walter has a big laser that he's pointing at The Dark Tower from Algul Siento, which is hooked up to children with 'the shine'. His entire quest is to grab Jake, who is powerful with 'the shine' so the giant laser works better. No Ted. No Dinky. Just Jake. The whole movie is from Jake's perspective (Goldsman's main contributon). Roland is barely in the first act.

I know King's stories have references and connections to each other, but this sounds like the director wants to make a King Cinematic Universe. I guess we can expect these character to show up in the sequels.

 

[FunkMiller]

I guess we can expect these character to show up in the sequels.

Oh, I don't think we'll be getting any sequels to this movie. And the TV series is dead too... unless you're talking a reboot in a few years.

The film was tracking low at the box office before the reviews started coming out. It might pull in the casual viewers with nothing better to do, and the hardcore King fans in denial, but it'll die quickly after Friday and Saturday.

This cinematic 'universe' is dead before it's even started.

 

[childeroland]

This sounds like a movie that was created not by a writer, but by a studio. The fact that Elba got the role of Roland should have been a warning sign.

If anything, Elba seems to be one of the few decent elements in this, if underused. Like when people complained about Michael B. Jordan in Trank's Fantastic Four film and then he turned out to be one of the few watchable parts of the movie.

 

[Neno_Kos]

I usually find majority of youtube comments cancerous, but this one was pure gold.

Can Sony just let Naughty Dog make their movies? I mean they clearly have a better understanding of cinematic story telling than the actual film division.?

 

[Art Vandelay]

Er, why?

Because this is Roland

Now it's not so much that they cast a black actor as a white character (although, Roland is a white guy), but that they cast a fairly young, handsome actor, who looks like he stepped out of a GQ photo shoot, as a character referred to as "Old long tall and ugly". And consider the other actors who were being considered for the role, Javier Bardem and Russell Crowe, both equally as wrong for the part as Elba, and it becomes clear that they weren't interested in casting the best actor. The produces have said they asked themselves what actor was the biggest badass at the moment, and they landed on Elba. Thinking of Roland as a "badass" just seems so wrongheaded. Which is probably why the movie has a shot of Elba jumping from a balcony, and shooting while falling. 'Cause that's what a "badass" would do. But does that sound like something Roland would do?

I think this quote is also pretty telling, from Stephen King:

Oh, a hat. I know, that’s funny, isn’t it? Trade secret — in the pictures, not only is he white, he’s wearing a hat and I talked to the producers of the movie about that and they said that movies, Western movies where the main character wears a hat don’t do well at the box office. And I said, “Really? Well, Denzel wore a hat all the way through The Magnificent Seven and that did pretty good at the box office", but they don’t pay any attention to that.

That's the type of thinking behind this movie.

 

[Deserana]

That's the type of thinking behind this movie.

That's the type of thinking behind most of Sonys movies.

 

[Limonade]

So I'm in the midst of reading the entire series of Dark Tower book. I'm in Book Three. Will this movie spoil most of what's to come?

I hear conflicting reports on trying to fit a lot into this movie. I had hoped they start with Book One and focused on that...

 

[TheVileOne]

The gifs are hilarious guys. Keep it up

 

[Loki882]

So let me get this straight:

Spoiler

You have these two really interesting characters, one good and one evil. And yet they choose to focus, ON A KID!!! To turn Stephen King's grand epic, into a glorified YA film?

That is so stupid that it almost defies comprehension.

 

[TheVileOne]

Sony recently acquired Funimation. So we can look forward to their failed launch of a Dragon Ball Cinematic Universe in the next few years.

Funimation doesn't own the film rights for Dragon Ball. Shueisha or Toei Animation likely own the property.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

All I needed to know this movie was going to bomb, other than those awful trailers, was the Guard's endorsement.

We all should have known. This was just like the Fantastic Four, just like all the movies that people just can't help but endorse here, but shows little to nothing in common with the source material. The material that made it desirable to adapt in the first place.

 

[FunkMiller]

So let me get this straight:

Spoiler

You have these two really interesting characters, one good and one evil. And yet they choose to focus, ON A KID!!! To turn Stephen King's grand epic, into a glorified YA film?

That is so stupid that it almost defies comprehension.

Akiva says hi.

And **** you. All of you.

 

[TheVileOne]

If anything, Elba seems to be one of the few decent elements in this, if underused. Like when people complained about Michael B. Jordan in Trank's Fantastic Four film and then he turned out to be one of the few watchable parts of the movie.

Jordan's performance in Fantastic Four was nothing special or to write home about.