It was supposed to be the next Lord of the Rings. Instead, it became a cautionary tale that Hollywood still hasn't quite lived down. When we talk about the dark tower movies, we’re mostly talking about a single, 95-minute sprint that tried to condense 4,250 pages of dense, metaphysical high fantasy into a summer popcorn flick. It didn't work. Honestly, it was never going to work that way. Stephen King fans waited decades to see Roland Deschain on the big screen, and what they got was a film that felt less like an epic and more like a "Previously On" segment for a show that never existed.
You’ve probably heard the term "development hell." For this project, that's an understatement. The journey to the 2017 film was a decade-long saga involving J.J. Abrams, Ron Howard, and eventually Nikolaj Arcel. At one point, the plan was a massive trilogy interspersed with TV seasons to cover the backstory. It was ambitious. It was brilliant. It was also, apparently, too expensive for Sony and MRC to pull the trigger on without gutting the source material first.
Why the 2017 Dark Tower Movie Felt So Off
The biggest hurdle for the dark tower movies wasn't the acting. Idris Elba is a phenomenal Roland. He has the "gunslinger" eyes—that weary, thousand-yard stare that King described so vividly in the books. Matthew McConaughey as Walter, the Man in Black, was inspired casting on paper. He brought that slick, Southern-fried nihilism that fits a dimension-hopping sorcerer. But the script? The script was a mess of "four-quadrant" filmmaking goals that stripped away the weirdness that makes The Dark Tower special.
The books are a gritty, genre-bending blend of spaghetti westerns, Arthurian legend, and meta-textual horror. The movie was a PG-13 action-adventure.
One major point of contention was the decision to make the movie a "sequel" to the books rather than a direct adaptation. If you know the ending of the final book, you know that Roland is caught in a cycle, and the movie represents his next "turn" of the wheel—this time carrying the Horn of Eld. It was a clever way to justify changes to the canon, but for casual viewers, it just felt like a generic story about a kid with psychic powers (Jake Chambers) and his grumpy bodyguard.
The Identity Crisis of Mid-World
Mid-World is supposed to be a place that has "moved on." It’s a dying reality where time and geography are breaking. In the film, it looked like a generic forest outside of Cape Town. We missed the sheer scale of the waste lands, the high-tech ruins of Lud, and the psychological weight of Roland’s quest. By centering the story on Jake and bringing so much of the action to modern-day New York, the film lost the "otherness" that defines the series.
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Budgetary constraints clearly played a role. Reports suggest the film cost around $60 million, which is surprisingly low for a tentpole fantasy. You can see it in the final product. The action is small-scale. The world feels empty, not because it’s a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but because there weren't enough extras or sets.
The Lost Amazon Pilot and What Could Have Been
While we only have one theatrical release in the lineup of the dark tower movies, there is a "ghost" project that haunts the fandom. After the 2017 film flopped—earning only $113 million worldwide—Amazon picked up the rights for a television series.
Glen Mazzara, the former showrunner for The Walking Dead, was at the helm. Unlike the movie, this was going to be a faithful adaptation starting with Wizard and Glass, Roland’s origin story. They actually filmed a pilot in Croatia starring Sam Strike as a young Roland and Jasper Pääkkönen as Marten Broadcloak.
The people who saw it said it was incredible. It was dark, R-rated, and leaned heavily into the "weird western" vibes. But Amazon ultimately passed. They already had The Wheel of Time and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power in the pipeline. They didn't think they needed a third massive fantasy epic, especially one with such a poisoned brand name following the 2017 theatrical disappointment. It’s a shame. That pilot represents the "missing link" that could have redeemed the franchise.
The Future: Mike Flanagan and the Long Walk Back
If you’re a fan, don't give up hope just yet. The conversation around the dark tower movies has shifted recently because of one name: Mike Flanagan.
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The creator of The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass is a self-proclaimed King fanatic. He already knocked Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep out of the park. In late 2022, it was announced that Flanagan and his Intrepid Pictures partner Trevor Macy had secured the rights to The Dark Tower.
Flanagan’s vision is different. He isn't looking to make a quick buck on a summer blockbuster. He has envisioned a five-season series followed by two standalone feature films.
- Faithfulness: Flanagan has stated he wants the opening shot to be the iconic first line: "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."
- Tone: He understands the horror elements. You can't have The Dark Tower without the Lobstrosities or the nightmare fuel that is the Shardik bear.
- Medium: By moving to a streaming/film hybrid, the story has room to breathe. You can't rush the Ka-tet’s journey. You need time to fall in love with Eddie, Susannah, and Oy.
Why Adaptations of This Series Usually Fail
Adapting King is notoriously tricky. For every Shawshank Redemption, there are three Dreamcatchers. With The Dark Tower, the problem is magnified by the sheer amount of lore.
Think about the "ka" philosophy. Or the fact that Stephen King himself eventually becomes a character in the books. How do you put that on screen without it looking ridiculous? The 2017 movie tried to solve this by ignoring it. They focused on "The Shine" (a nod to The Shining) as a way to link the universes, but it felt like cheap Easter egg hunting rather than true world-building.
To do it right, a director needs to embrace the "low speech" and "high speech," the "thinny" sounds that drive people mad, and the heartbreaking reality that Roland is a flawed, often cold-blooded protagonist. He isn't a traditional hero. In the first book, he makes a choice that is fundamentally unforgivable to most audiences. The movie didn't have the guts to go there.
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The Legacy of the 2017 Attempt
Is the 2017 film worth watching? Maybe, if you’re a completionist. The reload scenes where Roland handles his revolvers are genuinely cool. The cinematography has its moments. But as an adaptation of the dark tower movies, it’s a failure of nerve. It tried to be Star Wars when it should have been The Good, the Bad and the Ugly on acid.
The real "Dark Tower" experience remains on the page. However, the 2017 film did one good thing: it proved that you can't shortcut this story. It set the bar so low that whatever Flanagan produces will likely be hailed as a masterpiece by comparison, provided he gets the funding to realize the scope of the Beam.
Actionable Steps for the Aspiring Tower Junkie
If the film left a bad taste in your mouth, or if you’re looking to get into the series before the Flanagan era begins, here is the best way to approach the material:
- Read the books in order, but stick with it. The first book, The Gunslinger, is short and polarizing. It’s dry and surreal. If you don't like it, at least get halfway through book two, The Drawing of the Three. That’s where the "real" story begins.
- Check out the Marvel Comics. Before the movie came out, Robin Furth and Peter David oversaw a series of graphic novels that cover Roland’s backstory and the Fall of Gilead. The art is stunning and captures the grim-dark aesthetic perfectly.
- Listen to the Kingslingers podcast. If you want a deep dive into the themes and connections without doing all the heavy lifting yourself, this podcast breaks down the series chunk by chunk in a way that’s accessible for new readers.
- Watch Flanagan’s other King adaptations. To get a sense of how he might handle the Tower, watch Doctor Sleep (the Director’s Cut). His ability to blend King’s sentimentality with genuine terror is exactly what the Gunslinger needs.
The Tower is still standing. It’s just waiting for someone with the right key to open the door.