Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series of books were adapted into a 2017 film, which disappointed many fans due to the amount of mythology it had to attempt to cram into one film. Luckily, Amazon Studios is currently developing a TV series inspired by the series which will reportedly be heading into production in April.
That Hashtag Show reported that the production would take place in Croatia for the 13-episode first season.
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Though there’s little known about the project, like who will be starring in the feature, the last official confirmation that the series was moving forward came last summer.
“Those are scripts that I haven’t gotten yet. I’ll be seeing those, that material, in the coming weeks,” Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke promised to Deadline. “None of those things are dead. They’re very much alive.”
The feature film starred Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey and, even with the acclaimed actors, failed to leave an impression on audiences or critics. The original story spread across eight books, which made the concept of creating a single film that could appeal to devout fans and new viewers equally an incredibly difficult task. Sadly, the finished product didn’t connect with any audiences, as review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes calculated 16 percent positive reviews for the film while its worldwide box office sits at $112 million.
One big question about the TV series is whether or not Elba will return to the franchise, with the actor seemingly being left in the dark about the series’ progress.
“I don’t know, actually, where it lies. I must figure this out, I don’t know where it lies,” Elba shared with ScreenCrush last year. “I’m unfortunately the last to know at this point.”
While King himself may have promoted the film ahead of its release, when looking back at its shortcomings, he cited the tamer tone hindered the final product.
“The real problem, as far as I’m concerned is, they went in to this movie, and I think this was a studio edict pretty much: this is going to be a PG-13 movie. It’s going to be a tentpole movie,” King shared with Entertainment Weekly previously. “We want to make sure that we get people in there from the ages of, let’s say, 12 right on up to whatever the target age is. Let’s say 12 to 35. That’s what we want.”
“So it has to be PG-13, and when they did that I think that they lost a lot of the toughness of it and it became something where people went to it and said, ‘Well yeah, but it’s really not anything that we haven’t seen before,’” he added.
Stay tuned for details about the future of The Dark Tower TV series.
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