According to Deadline Hollywood, Warners is going to decide within the next two weeks whether it wants to move forward with the Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman-led adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower” series. With Javier Bardem out now, the filmmakers are looking to Russell Crowe to play gunslinger Roland Deschain.
Crowe could plausibly play the part with the grit, grisel and quiet nuance it deserves, but his potential casting (and, yes, the potential of the project happening at all) almost doesn’t matter. Why? Because it’ll still be a muted Howard/Goldsman project. Both have managed to make interesting movies amongst mediocre ones, but they just aren’t daring enough to make this compelling.
For fans and fanatics of the books, this casting announcement is just another fly buzzing around the fate that will soon be passed down. Either Warners will breathe life into the almost assuredly safe version of this story, they’ll pass on it in its current form, or they’ll pass completely. No matter what the decision, it doesn’t look hopeful for fans that want the kind of movie that The Dark Tower should be.