TV
Stephen King Says “The Dark Tower” Series Would Be a Reboot
The adaptation of Stephen King‘s The Dark Tower wasn’t just to begin a new film franchise but was also supposed to spread across other platforms, including television. After bombing in its theatrical run ($110M worldwide gross on a $60M budget), reports still indicated that the producers would continue to move forward on a series. In fact, just two months ago it was announced that Glen Mazzara, who ran “The Walking Dead” between 2011 and 2013, has come aboard “The Dark Tower” as showrunner. Even with this news we were convinced that the franchise is all but dead. In a new interview with King, he reveals that they’ll need to do a complete reboot, while also offering his reasoning for the film’s failures.
“The major challenge was to do a film based on a series of books that’s really long, about 3,000 pages,” King told Vulture. “The other part of it was the decision to do a PG-13 feature adaptation of books that are extremely violent and deal with violent behavior in a fairly graphic way. That was something that had to be overcome, although I’ve gotta say, I thought [screenwriter] Akiva Goldsman did a terrific job in taking a central part of the book and turning it into what I thought was a pretty good movie.
“The TV series they’re developing now … we’ll see what happens with that,” he added. “It would be like a complete reboot, so we’ll just have to see.”
The movie was ill-advised from the start being that it spanned over 8 books and 3,000 pages. A television series, on the other hand, would make a whole lot of sense and allow for world and character building over several seasons. It appears by doing things ass-backward they may have shot themselves in the foot and killed this franchise dead before it even had a chance to breathe.
The series, in development through Media Rights Capital and Sony Pictures Television, is currently in its early stages. A network is not yet attached and is being eyed for a short-order (between 10 and 13 episodes) and a home on cable or streaming outlets.
Blade Runner is headed to the small screen in Prime Video’s upcoming Blade Runner 2099, set 50 years after Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049, in a world where replicants have emerged on top after an uprising.
Humans are no longer in power.
At the forefront of the new series are stars Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once) and Hunter Schafer (Cuckoo), and EW has shared the first images of their characters.
Yeoh stars as a replicant Blade Runner named Olwen, facing the final days of her life. It’s a twist on the Roy Batty story from the first film; here, that story will be told from the replicant’s perspective.
Opposite her is Schafer as Olwen’s partner, Cora, a human fugitive pretending to be a replicant. Olwen and Cora will be working together to investigate missing rogue replicants.
Blade Runner 2099 comes from Alcon Entertainment, Scott Free, and Amazon Studios. Silka Luisa (“Shining Girls”) is writing, showrunning, and executive producing.
Jonathan van Tulleken (“Shōgun”) will direct and executive produce the first two episodes.
Luisa tells EW that Ridley Scott’s seminal sci-fi noir acts as the series’ North Star, but it’ll forge its own identity: “We leaned into sunshine noir. You’re still very much in the Blade Runner world, but the show is about a birth. It’s about a birth of a city. It’s about a birth of a replicant era. These characters are discovering who they really are. And so the climate is hot, it’s sticky, it’s sunny. We’re on the coast a lot. We’re in Santa Monica a lot. So it’s like you’re seeing Ridley’s texture, but you’re seeing it in the sunshine noir filter.”
The showrunner adds, “The show is really imagining what comes after us, and what does it mean to be human in a world where humanity is no longer relevant?“
Dimitri Abold (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Lewis Gribben (Somewhere Boy), Katelyn Rose Downey (The Nun II), and Daniel Rigby (Renegade Nell) also star in the upcoming series. Johnny Harris (A Gentleman in Moscow), Amy Lennox (Only Child), Sheila Atim (The Woman King), and Matthew Needham (House of the Dragon) join as recurring guest stars.
Blade Runner 2099 is expected to premiere later this year, so stay tuned.
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
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