The critics have spoken (including ours), and “The Dark Tower” is not good (and Sony is probably not going to like the Rotten Tomatoes score). However, the studio has franchise hopes pinned on the Stephen King adaptation, with sequels and an interconnected TV series all promised early on. And by God, they are not going to let some lousy critics and a likely underwhelming opening weekend stop them.
THR reveals that “The Walking Dead” showrunner Glen Mazzara has been tapped to do the same for the brewing series. If the stars miraculously align, the project from producers Media Rights Capital and Sony (who reportedly found it hard to cooperate on the movie), will be aiming for a straight-to-series order of 10 to 13 episodes, with production to start in early 2018. Moreover, “The Dark Tower” director Nikolaj Arcel promises King fans that it’ll be “totally canon” and expand the story beyond the introductory purpose of the film.
“I was part of writing the pilot, like the first season ideas and the pilot and the second episode. It’s gonna be awesome,” he told Indiewire. “We’re going back in the past. It’s very, very closely adhering to the ‘Wizard and Glass’ novel and parts of ‘The Gunslinger’ novel. That was exciting to be even more like, ‘Okay, now we’re going to be able to even lift lines directly, or like [write] characters exactly as they are. Which, as a fan, was exciting in a different way.”
Again, this is all contingent on “The Dark Tower” being successful enough that it makes sense to throw money after a TV series. But then, no one is asking for an “Ascendant” TV series, but that’s still happening.