Amazon Passes on Stephen King’s Dark Tower Series Adaptation

The Dark Tower series of books might be some of Stephen King‘s most beloved novels, but the narrative can’t seem to find any live-action love as Amazon has passed on moving forward with the series adaptation of the narrative, according to Deadline. The sprawling nature of the storyline and its mythology reportedly didn’t translate well to the pilot that was produced, which was made especially evident when compared to the seeming successes of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings TV series it is currently developing. While the pilot’s cast was never officially confirmed, it is said to have included Michael Rooker, Jerome Flynn, and Joana Ribeiro.

According to Stephen King’s official website, “The Dark Tower series tells the story of Roland Deschain, Mid-World’s last gunslinger, who is traveling southeast across Mid-World’s post-apocalyptic landscape, searching for the powerful but elusive magical edifice known as ‘The Dark Tower.’ Located in the fey region of End-World, amid a sea of singing red roses, the Dark Tower is the nexus point of the time-space continuum. It is the heart of all worlds, but it is also under threat. Someone, or something, is using the evil technology of the Great Old Ones to destroy it.”

The storyline was previously adapted into a feature film back in 2017, which failed to impress critics or audiences, as it sits at 16% positive reviews on aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes and managed to only take in $112 million worldwide. Given that the eight-book narrative blended elements of fantasy, science fiction, and horror, King himself previously revealed why he felt the film was a disappointment.

“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.”

He added, “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.‘”

Stay tuned for details on the potential future of The Dark Tower series.

Are you disappointed that the series isn’t moving forward? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!