Mike Flanagan's Adaptation of Stephen King's 'The Dark Tower'

[Persona]

You are certainly entitled to abstain if you think any changes the TV series makes are just going to detract from your experience.

I think I would understand that viewpoint better if the source material was some focused, precisely calibrated masterpiece, but The Dark Tower is a great big mess of an epic with a plot that flutters on the fickle winds of ka/Stephen King's whims. It's very nature is fluid and meta and I think really suited to having a TV version.

Moreso than narrative faithfulness, I think the important thing is that the series captures the vibe, the core ideas, and the basic characterizations from the book. The movie failed that on all counts, but then I'm not really sure what the movie was even trying to accomplish.

 

[BaelaTargaryen]

‘The Dark Tower’: Michael Rooker Co-Stars In Amazon Pilot – Deadline

Pääkkönen is believed to be playing Marten, the character Roland is out to kill. I hear Rooker also plays a main villain and may be Eldred Jonas from the books, a failed gunslinger.

The cast of the pilot also is believed to include Jerome Flynn and Joana Ribeiro.

 

[Deck Rickard]

How do you know they are going to fundamentally change the story though? The movie... yeah, they butchered it. But have the people associated with the show said anything that indicated that they want to change major parts of the story?

 

[Deck Rickard]

‘The Dark Tower’: Michael Rooker Co-Stars In Amazon Pilot – Deadline

This cast is really coming together. Just as long as Jerome Flynn doesn't try to do whatever accent he was doing in John Wick 3, lol.

 

[Persona]

‘The Dark Tower’: Michael Rooker Co-Stars In Amazon Pilot – Deadline

Not sure how much of that article is guesswork, but if Rooker is playing a villain like it says and we know he's not Marten and we know the story of the first season is mostly Wizard & Glass, he almost certainly has to be Jonas if he's a book character.

Which I suspected and very heartily approve of. Rooker will be a GREAT Jonas.

 

[JimThompson]

You are certainly entitled to abstain if you think any changes the TV series makes are just going to detract from your experience.

Gosh. Thanks for your permission.

 

[Persona]

I mean, I'm not trying to be like that, I would just think you'd at least give it a shot, you know. But if you don't have Prime I understand not wanting to spring for a subscription just for a show you don't think will work for you.

 

[Marvolo]

I think Prime has monthly subscriptions now so youd only need to subscribe for a single month since the whole season will be on Prime when it premieres. And there is usually a 1 month free trial if you've never had Prime Video. Whenever the season premieres do the free trial and see if you like it at no cost.

 

[FunkMiller]

Certainly, though going in depth doesn't address this concern in my quote: People seem more interested in how they can change elements of the story rather than how they can tell it.

Hopefully you enjoy this version of The Dark Tower. I just have no interest in Hollywood taking a crack at it.

How do you know they are going to fundamentally change the story though? The movie... yeah, they butchered it. But have the people associated with the show said anything that indicated that they want to change major parts of the story?

Thing is though, they HAVE to change a lot of The Dark Tower’s story for any adaptation, given how meta-textual the books become. To try and adapt everything without some substantial changes would absolutely be the wrong thing to do. They’ll either have to drop and rewrite all of the meta stuff, or if they intend to include it still, they’ll have to alter it a great deal. And if they do keep it in, I’ll be very disappointed if this live action version doesn’t acknowledge that on another level of the Tower there’s a live action version of it being made...

Wizard And Glass should be a straight forward, accurate adaptation, but as soon as you get to Roland in the Mohaine Desert, and that dizzy spell, then you can start making alterations that, of course, don’t in any way contradict what happens in the books. And there’s some stuff in the books - the later ones anyway - that is a bit crap, so I’m happy for some changes to be made. From the moment 19 enters the story, things get a bit sloppy, and I’d be very glad to see them altered for the better.

...also Rooker as Cort is my preference. Jonas is pretty much Sam Elliott - tall, thin, big moustache.

 

[Finarfiniel]

Not sure how much of that article is guesswork, but if Rooker is playing a villain like it says and we know he's not Marten and we know the story of the first season is mostly Wizard & Glass, he almost certainly has to be Jonas if he's a book character.

Which I suspected and very heartily approve of. Rooker will be a GREAT Jonas.

Excellent. I agree that it certainly sounds like he's playing Jonas and I'm glad. Cort is a great character, but he would only be important to the story at the very beginning when Roland takes his gunslinger test (unless he crops up often in flashbacks), whereas Jonas (along with Rhea) is the most prominent villain in Wizard and Glass and will likely have a heck of a lot more focus and screen time. Plus, Rooker just fits Jonas like a glove, both physically and in character/personality.

I agree that doing a completely literal adaptation of the very meta-heavy later books in the series would be nearly impossible, they would have to change some things just to make the show work, because what works and makes sense in written or pictorial form isn't always going to work in a live action adaptation, that's true for any book or comic/graphic novel. For example, the main characters in this book series are actually aware towards the end that they are characters in a book series written by Stephen King (who is a character himself!), and that King himself is merely a medium through which the creator Gan is creating their story to save the Dark Tower. How exactly does the show adapt that? Would they change it so that the characters are aware that they're characters in a TV show based on a book series? It kinda boggles the mind. If Mazzara and co ever get that far through the books then they'll have a huge challenge on their hands to make it work.

 

[:eek:]

KIng has said that he look at the books as a first draft of the story and have considered rewriting them, maybe even condensing the entire story into one single book. Not sure if that's ever going to happen, but I don't think he really won't mind any changes any adaptation makes.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Excellent. I agree that it certainly sounds like he's playing Jonas and I'm glad. Cort is a great character, but he would only be important to the story at the very beginning when Roland takes his gunslinger test (unless he crops up often in flashbacks), whereas Jonas (along with Rhea) is the most prominent villain in Wizard and Glass and will likely have a heck of a lot more focus and screen time. Plus, Rooker just fits Jonas like a glove, both physically and in character/personality.

I agree that doing a completely literal adaptation of the very meta-heavy later books in the series would be nearly impossible, they would have to change some things just to make the show work, because what works and makes sense in written or pictorial form isn't always going to work in a live action adaptation, that's true for any book or comic/graphic novel. For example, the main characters in this book series are actually aware towards the end that they are characters in a book series written by Stephen King (who is a character himself!), and that King himself is merely a medium through which the creator Gan is creating their story to save the Dark Tower. How exactly does the show adapt that? Would they change it so that the characters are aware that they're characters in a TV show based on a book series? It kinda boggles the mind. If Mazzara and co ever get that far through the books then they'll have a huge challenge on their hands to make it work.

Maybe they will also include the movie adaptation in there as well. They’ll say it was one of Marten’s schemes; he influenced our world to make a crappy movie adaptation of The Dark Tower so that people here would have no interest in the tower itself and would do nothing to keep it from being destroyed.

 

[Persona]

New Photos From The DARK TOWER Set May Reveal One Of The Big Coffin Hunters

 

[Persona]

According to IMDB, Daniel Fathers is playing Abel Vannay.

Pleasantly surprised we are getting Vannay!

 

[Persona]

Elaine Cassidy is Roland's mom.

This is a really strong cast.

 

[Man in the Suit]

Now I'm waiting to find out who the director is... And I wouldn't be surprised if Bear McCreary does the music.

 

[Persona]

Yeah, I am really surprised that with the number of credits on IMDB now, none of the major technical ones are on there (director, cinematographer, editor). I was actually thinking about asking Glen Mazzara on Twitter about who the director of the pilot is.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Yeah that is really weird. I wonder if Mazarra will get Greg Nicotero to direct any episodes that are more horror-heavy.

 

[Persona]

If it's a Walking Dead connection (which would be a solid bet) then I think Mazzara would go with Ernest Dickerson as he seemed to be the director of choice for Mazzara when he was show-runner on TWD (Dickerson directed most of the episodes that Mazzara had direct screenwriting credit on). Dickerson also did the second episode of Mazzara's show Damien. Shekhar Kapur directed the pilot of Damien so I'd say that's another possibility. Others from Damien that might be possibilities are Nick Copus, Guillermo Navarro, or Jennifer Lynch.

 

[Persona]

Now I'm waiting to find out who the director is... And I wouldn't be surprised if Bear McCreary does the music.

Yeah, given how much Mazzara worked with McCreary on both TWD and Damien, if McCreary has the time to do it (seems to be getting more and more in demand) then he seems like the logical pick.

 

[Man in the Suit]

If it's a Walking Dead connection (which would be a solid bet) then I think Mazzara would go with Ernest Dickerson as he seemed to be the director of choice for Mazzara when he was show-runner on TWD (Dickerson directed most of the episodes that Mazzara had direct screenwriting credit on). Dickerson also did the second episode of Mazzara's show Damien. Shekhar Kapur directed the pilot of Damien so I'd say that's another possibility. Others from Damien that might be possibilities are Nick Copus, Guillermo Navarro, or Jennifer Lynch.

Dickerson and Mazzara worked very well together. I hope he works on the series if he isn't doing the pilot.

Spoiler

I noticed Dickerson directed a bunch of the Amazon series Bosch. So he has that connection.

Yeah, given how much Mazzara worked with McCreary on both TWD and Damien, if McCreary has the time to do it (seems to be getting more and more in demand) then he seems like the logical pick.

McCreary has a team of writers working for him kinda like Hans Zimmer does. I don't think he's worked on TWD or Agents of Shield in years. Those shows have a bunch of additional music credits on IMDb.

 

[Persona]

Right but I think McCreary would have done some of the scoring in seasons 2 and 3 of TWD, which is when Mazzara was showrunner. And he did the main pieces of music for Mazzara's Damien.

 

[Man in the Suit]

Yeah, McCreary was definitely more involved then. He used to post videos of him working on it.

 

[Persona]

Tim Chipping is Christopher Johns, father of Alain who is one of young Roland's ka-tet.

Can't wait to see who is playing Alain and Cuthbert!

 

[Deck Rickard]

And don’t forget Jamie DeCurry!


...actually, you can forget him. I’m honestly indifferent as to whether or not he appears, lol.