The road to Stephen King’s Dark Tower, a supernatural mix-up of an apocalypse and Old West gunslingers, has been rock journey indeed. The ambitious plan to adapt the entire saga into a mixture of film and television met a serious hurdle earlier this year, when Universal Studios took a look at the amount of cash that would be needed, and promptly spat their coffee out in astonishment. Warner Bros saved the first film from development hell though, and things just might move ahead, now that Russell Crowe has been offered the lead role.
With a new script on the way from Akiva Goldsman, director Ron Howard has offered his Beautiful Mind partner the lead role, of Roland Deschain, a part that Javier Bardem was initially considered for.
Crowe is back in the game of appearing in ambitious, massively-budgeted films right now, as he’ll be portraying Jor El in the upcoming Superman reboot Man of Steel, while he’ll also be kicking biblical ass in Darren Aronofsky’s Noah.
The man is still a big draw at the box office, and if he agrees to slap leather and unload those six-shooters in this film, it might be all the motivation that Warner Bros needs to give Howard the greenlight to finally go and produce this film.
Last Updated: August 3, 2012
Hugh Lashbrooke
August 3, 2012 at 13:32
I really hope they get this off the ground – the whole time I was reading it I was thinking it would make an epic movie/TV series. I reckon Crowe would be solid in the role, although I did think that Bardem was awesome – he’s pretty much just how I pictured Roland.