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New Director In Talks For Stephen King’s The Dark Tower

More activity is stirring in the curiously troubled realm of Stephen King movies. Just as one long-awaited movie based on an epic King work, ‘It,’ loses its director and veers into a kind of limbo, so does another long-awaited adaptation of an even more epic King work suddenly slip back into the spotlight with a new director at the helm.

Deadline reports that Danish filmmaker Nikolaj Arcel, best known to English-speaking audiences for co-writing the 2009 version of ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’ and writing and directing 2012′s ‘A Royal Affair,’ is being targeted by Sony Pictures to bring the ambitious project to life.

Arcel is said to be a passionate and knowledgeable King fan well-versed in ‘The Dark Tower’ series, and the studio are apparently also encouraged by his ability to “go dark” as the material demands, as evidenced by ‘Dragon Tattoo.’

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‘The Dark Tower’ is easily the lengthiest narrative ever composed by Stephen King, which is saying a great deal. Launched in 1982 with initial novel ‘The Gunslinger,’ the story went on to span a further seven novels over the next three decades, finally reaching a conclusion with 2012′s ‘The Wind Through The Keyhole.’

As well as being King’s longest (and longest-running) story, it’s also arguably his most idiosyncratic, moving away from his signature horror style to encompass elements of the western, science fiction and mythic fantasy.

It’s fair to say that Arcel, a Danish director with little exposure in the US thus far, does not seem the most obvious choice to take up the reins of a project once set to be directed by Oscar-winning Hollywood veteran Ron Howard, who was attached when a film adaptation was first mooted in 2010.

Perhaps in-keeping with the epic and unconventional nature of the material, Howard’s plans for the screen adaptation were equally ambitious and unusual, proposing a trilogy of films plus two television series to bridge the gaps between them.

Initially it looked like this might come to pass with Warner Bros and HBO handling the project, with either Javier Bardem or Russell Crowe tipped to take lead role of gunslinger Ronald Deschain. Alas, the challenging enterprise failed to get off the ground.

Howard remains on board as producer along with Akiva Goldsman, Erica Huggins, Brian Grazer and Stephen King himself. Deadline hint that new Sony boss Tom Rothman is keen on the “strong franchise” potential of the property, emphasizing this first film is “planned to be the first in a series of movies,” and noting that “a complementary TV series is also being developed by MRC [Media Rights Capital].”

It will be interesting to see if this particular King adaptation does at last gain momentum, as while there are no shortage of films in development based on the massively popular writer’s back catalogue, the bulk of them seem to be in difficulty.

Most recently director Cary Fukunaga walked out on New Line’s ‘It,’ whilst there doesn’t seem to have been much progress on Josh Boone’s ‘The Stand’ (another potentially multi-film adaptation) at Warner Bros.

‘Oculus’ and ‘Before I Wake’ director Mike Flanagan also has a movie of ‘Gerald’s Game’ in the works which seems to be struggling to get off the ground; and even horror legend George Romero declared recently that he “can’t get anyone interested” in his take on ‘The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.’

The last King movie to reach cinemas was the 2013 remake of ‘Carrie’ - whilst the next should be ‘Cell,’ expected to hit screens later this year.

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Picture Credit: Hodder, WENN