Sorry Gungslingers, Amazon Has Passed on 'The Dark Tower' Series

Sad news today, as it looks like the road to The Dark Tower series just got longer...

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...via Deadline, Amazon has passed on the pilot for The Dark Tower series. The adaptation of the popular Stephen King seven-part book series was on its way from executive producer/showrunner Glen Mazzara and MRC. According to Deadline, the production company is shopping two scripts that were the basis for the pilot originally being picked up. Supposedly, Amazon execs felt like the series was not up to the level of scope of other fantasy genre shows in pre-production through the service, such as The Lord of the Rings. 

​As for what The Dark Tower series entails, says the site:

"'The Dark Tower' TV series was designed to be independent from the 2017 film and was meant to be a more faithful retelling of the book than the movie was. It takes place many years before the events depicted in the feature and focused on the origin story of Roland Deschain’s – how he first became a gunslinger and got his guns, his first conflict with the man in black, his first love and his first mission as a gunslinger."

Ultimately, this is pretty disappointing news. The Dark Tower has traversed so many different development hells, that the road to getting the damn thing made feels as treacherous as the harrowing journey experienced by the series' main character, Roland. 

As someone who is pretty familiar with the series, it's also a shame that this version of the show is being passed on. It sounds a hell of a lot like the plot of the fourth book in King's series, The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass, which is actually my favorite in the series. It's not on the level of action that something like Lord of the Rings will likely be, but it's a great story that goes into the tragedy of Roland's history, with some phenomenal characters. 

Oh well, time for this Ka-tet to get back on the road, and hopefully we'll see this series someday. 

By Matt Konopka