Stephen King Admits He Wrote ‘The Dark Tower’ to Entertain Himself

Earlier this year, the highly-anticipated adaptation of The Dark Tower hit theaters, disappointing both fans and critics with its messy story about Roland Deschain and the Man in Black. While many were underwhelmed by the production, writer of the original series of novels, Stephen King, doesn’t seem too disappointed with the experience, revealing on a home video release featurette that his first and only goal with the story was entertaining himself.

“My mission in life has never been to do anything other than entertain myself,” King confessed. “Any writer who does anything else is a bug, as far as I’m concerned.”

This outlook isn’t specific to The Dark Tower, but King claims virtually all of his stories start with one little piece of inspiration that he likes to follow until he reaches a natural conclusion.

“To me, the story is this little red thread that’s coming out of a hole in the wall,” King shared. “And you take that thread and you pull it, you pull it, you pull it, you pull it, because you want to see what’s on the other end.”

The initial idea can come from a number of places, but with this series of books, the author claimed it came from the opening line.

“You want to get it out of that hole, you want to see it, so that when I started The Dark Tower, I started it with that one line, ‘The Man in Black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed,’” the author admitted. “I had no idea where I was going from there. These characters come out, little by little, they fill in a picture of who they are and what they’re gonna do and you fall in love with them.”

Given the inherent complications of adapting a story that spans eight novels, it’s no surprise that the film, which ran only barely over 90 minutes, created a disorientating experience for fans both new and familiar. Despite the poor performance of The Dark Tower, star Idris Elba still hopes to explore the story’s mythology further.

“I think any TV series that is an offshoot from the film can have more time to explore some themes,” Elba recently told RadioTimes. “I’d personally prefer to do another Dark Tower film, exploring some more of the gunslinger — as a film.”

“I don’t know much about where they are with the TV show, but I think there’s definitely talks to try and do another one,” he said.

[H/T Bloody Disgusting]