Amazon has recently revealed that they no longer plan to go through with the TV adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower. In fact, Amazon Studios no longer plans to even film the pilot episode of the series.
The showrunner was Glen Mazzara of Walking Dead fame, working alongside production company MRC, which has worked on things like Ted, House of Cards, and Ozark. But since Amazon has decided not to run with the series at all, MRC is now meeting with other networks to discuss getting The Dark Tower TV series running. Who those networks are is being kept secret for now.
As for Amazon’s reasons for giving up on this adaptation of a Stephen King book, it has apparently been “very difficult to adapt” to television. Apparently, the pilot episode that Glen Mazzara was pitching for the show was not “on the level of other large-scope elevated genre series” that Amazon was currently interested in, such as Lord of the Rings and The Wheel of Time. This was apparently the primary reason that Amazon decided against taking on the show.
This TV show is not to be confused with the 2017 Dark Tower movie from Sony, which starred Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey. The plot of the TV show will be separate from that film, instead focusing on the backstory of gunslinger Roland Deschain, as well as his combative history with the man in black.
The TV show was also supposed to use different actors for its characters, with Sam Strike and Jasper Pääkkönen cast for the main roles instead of Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey.
It’s unclear whether or not The Dark Tower TV series will manage to take off under the jurisdiction of another network, but seeing as how MRC is trying to pitch the show to other networks, it seems likely that someone will pick it up eventually. Whether or not it will be good is another matter entirely, but that’s just speculation.
As for Amazon, they are still going through with their Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time series, and they have recently hired Phoebe Waller-Bridge for $20 million dollars a year to create new content for their network, though there is no word on what that content will be. Either away, Amazon is certain to field more shows, while The Dark Tower series will hopefully find its footing with another network.
