The film adaptation of Stephen King‘s sprawling sci-fi series The Dark Tower was a box office disappointment when it opened in August, and while the author was heavily involved with the project, he does have a few thoughts on why it failed.
In a new interview with Vulture, King explained that the chief error was attempting to condense eight books’ worth of material into a roughly hour-and-a-half long movie.
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“The major challenge was to do a film based on a series of books that’s really long, about 3,000 pages,” the author explained. “The other part of it was the decision to do a PG-13 feature adaptation of books that are extremely violent and deal with violent behavior in a fairly graphic way.”
He continued, “That was something that had to be overcome, although I’ve gotta say, I thought [screenwriter] Akiva Goldsman did a terrific job in taking a central part of the book and turning it into what I thought was a pretty good movie.”
The film, which was in development for years and starred Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, received mostly negative reviews and currently holds a 16 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
A TV series based on the Dark Tower books is currently in the works and may allow the opportunity to further expand on the detailed mythology present in King’s saga.
“The TV series they’re developing now … we’ll see what happens with that,” King said. “It would be like a complete reboot, so we’ll just have to see.”
Photo Credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment
