When it comes to interesting (and more often than not, horrifying) stories, readers can usually count on the prolificStephen Kingto deliver. His book series,The Dark Tower, is a highly acclaimed story that follows the heroic gunslinger in his quest for revenge against the villainous Man in Black in an epic battle of good versus evil that spans years. One would think that such a widely loved series by a critically acclaimed author would result in afilm adaptation’s box office success. After all, many of Stephen King’s other works have become wildly successful in movie form, including classics likeCarrie,The Shining,Misery, and everyone’s favorite horrifying clown monsterIT. Unfortunately,The Dark Tower’s 2017 film adaptation starringMatthew McConaugheyandIdris Elbaleft a lot to be desired.
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The Dark Tower Was Set Up For Success
Many actors have one or two (sometimes more than a few) lackluster roles in their career, and after 2017, that was true of both Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, who have both proven their talent in other projects before and sinceThe Dark Tower.Tom Taylorplays his part well as the young but gifted kid, Jake, and appears in several other roles that prove he is a gifted actor with range.
In terms of the characters, the three major roles are played by incredibly gifted actors. In this area, at least,The Dark Towerwas an exciting concept: with star power coming from both Elba and McConaughey, as well as the up and coming Taylor, the film should have included amazing performances. After all, it’s hard to go wrong with Idris Elba in the role of a gruff but lovable loner, and McConaughey does just as well in villainous roles. The director,Nikolaj Arcel, rounded out an already exciting roster of talented artists working on the film.
The Dark Tower’s source materialalso includes a rich story world full of dynamic characters. The series itself is eight novels long, not including short stories and a children’s book, and though the first novel in the series is only a little over 200 pages, the longest book in the series (The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower) is 845 pages. That’s a lot of source material to pull from, giving the film adaptation as much as possible to work with. The story itself combines the timeless dynamic of good and evil, with the specific style of Stephen King’s brand of horror, and, for this series, mixes in a lot of Western, fantasy, and sci-fi elements. Such a time-tested overarching good versus evil dynamic paired with King’s unique storytelling style makes for a truly unique book series.
The Dark Towerseries also serves as a meeting place for many of King’s other literary works due to the complicated nature of King’s extended universe. Villains from his other stories, including characters fromSalem’s Lot,The Stand, andIT, make appearances throughoutThe Dark Towerseries. This means that, ifThe Dark Towerfilm had been the starting point for its own franchise, it could have included not just the eight-book series but many other King stories as well. Add in the fact that Stephen King’s writing style typically includes some extremely visual storytelling (as evidenced by the sheer amount of films based off his books), andThe Dark Towerwas truly set up for success. All it had to do was follow through.
How ‘The Dark Tower’ Earned Its Lukewarm Response
The Dark Towercould have been a fantastic film; in fact, it had all the makings of one. And yet, the end product didn’t break even. With a $66 million dollar budget,The Dark Toweronly made about $50 million at the US box office. What went wrong? A myriad of problems plagued the film behind the scenes, but one of the biggest contributors to its disappointing release would have to be the script. Though the film had eight novels (plus extra source material) to adapt, the script cobbled together bits from many of the novels, set the film after the events of the books (if you’re already confused, it’s alright: audiences were too), and simplified the story to painful degrees.
This strange reorganization of events isn’t the only portion of the source material that became skewed when adapted to the 2017 film. Characterizations became altered, leaving some characters nearly unrecognizable. Though the main actors played their roles with as much range and freedom as the script allowed, they weren’t always very interesting, and their talents were wasted on flat characters.
Granted, anytime a film adaptation is made, some changes are unavoidable. Characters and events will never be completely the same as the books, for better and worse, and that’s just the nature ofmovie and TV adaptations. However, proven in this instance by the confusing decision to change the story and characters so much as to become unfaithful, the film wasn’t necessarily made for fans ofThe Dark Towerbooks, but for a much broader audience.
Speaking of, the rating of the film is something to note as well. WhileThe Dark Towermovie is PG-13, the books themselves are far darker and much more violent; they would easily earn an R rating if the adaptation were faithful to the darkness of King’s original series. This rating was given, no doubt, to appeal to a wider audience, including younger viewers, which is understandable. But a PG-13 rating on a film with dark source material limits what the adaptation can do. The film was further limited by a 95-minute runtime. How couldThe Dark Towerpossibly tell its epic story in only an hour and a half? These strange changes and limits make the movie’s failure far more understandable, but not necessarily forgivable.
Though there are plenty of aspects of the film to complain about,The Dark Towerisn’t so terrible that it’s at the bottom of the barrel. Some action-heavy scenes are exciting, and some emotional moments hit home, but overall the film runs from scene to scene without much point or reason.The Dark Towerfilm wasn’t necessarily a good movie, and it completely blindsided its book fans with an unfaithful adaptation, so a movie like that should have earned a lot of ire and hate watching.
However,The Dark Towerfailed in a very unique way: rather than being a bitterly targeted hate watch (and a box office flop), it’s simply forgettable (and also a box office flop). Because the film industry is full of genuinely amazing and creative movies, as well as truly horrible stories that are so bad they’re fun to watch just for laughs,The Dark Towerdoesn’t even count as a “so bad it’s good” film. The special effects are serviceable, the characters serve their purpose, and the actors do what they can with what they have. It’s not great, and it’s not terrible: it’s forgettable, and that’s a much more serious crime.
With so many benefits in its corner, it’s a true shame that 2017’sThe Dark Towerfailed as non-spectacularly as it did, but luckily there’s still hope for a better adaptation. After Amazon’s cancelation of their TV series adaptation ofThe Dark Tower, filmmakerMike Flannaganannounced his own idea for a multi-season adaptationof the book series just last year.
The newDark Toweradaptation doesn’t necessarily have to be the best TV series ever; as long as it isn’t boring, it’s already doing a far better job than the 2017 version.
