Director Ron Howard is obsessed with adapting Steven King’s seven-novel Dark Tower series into a movie trilogy bridged by two TV series (see “Uni’s Ambitious Plans for ‘The Dark Tower’”).  Howard told The Washington Post, “I really can't stop thinking about it.  We've been meeting and talking, and I've been reading and researching and just kind of living with it. I've been constantly going through stuff, and I've just been relistening to it (on audio books) on my iPod, and we've been sending e-mails back and forth, 'What about this approach? What do you think of this idea?' We're finding the shape of it. We're moving quickly now, as quickly as we can, and I feel challenged in the most exciting ways."

King’s seven Dark Tower novels encompass a mammoth 3,795 pages and have collectively sold over 30 million copies.  Last year King announced that he was working on an eighth book in the series, The Wind Through the Keyhole.  Marvel Comics has created a popular comic book adaptation of The Dark Tower, but Universal’s ambitious combination of movies and TV series marks the first really serious attempt to dramatize the groundbreaking fantasy saga. 

Howard is working with writer Akiva Goldsman and producer Brian Grazer on The Dark Tower project--the same team responsible for the Oscar-winning A Beautiful Mind.