Caffeinated Clint
Don’t expect Ron Howard’s ambitious franchise plans for Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower” to come to fruition.
Universal Pictures ultimately dumped the epic undertaking last year, citing the budget of the proposed film and TV series (yes, both) was giving them the chills. Recently, word leaked that Warner Bros was considering taking over the project.
Seems not even the power-packed union of Howard, star Russell Crowe (who would’ve played ‘The Gunslinger’), writer Akiva Goldsman (“A Beautiful Mind”) and producer Brian Grazer was enough to entice the home of Batman and Officer Mahoney into taking a gamble on the project. Warners ultimately passed, according to Variety.
Things might change if Howard’s next pic, racing-car flick “Rush” delivers big numbers at the box office, but at the present time I’d say “Dark Tower” has been put on ice.
Pity Howard structured the thing to be such a large undertaking, what with the agreeing studio having to commit to several films and a TV series if they wanted in; if he had gone the way of Cruise’s thing under the steel bowl in his “Far & Away”, and kept things relatively small, it might’ve been more enticing.
