If you’ve been following along, then you know there has been no shortage of drama concerning Ron Howard’s planned adaptation of Stephen King’s genre-bending series, The Dark Tower. First, the epic project — which is meant to encompass a total of three movies and two interlocking television seasons — was unceremoniously dumped by Universal over the summer due to its unwieldy nature and hefty price tag. Plenty of people assumed that like many ambitious book-to-film adaptations that came before it, the project would never see the light of day. Now, producer Brian Grazer reports that he and Howard have managed to shave off $45 to 50 million from the budget of the first film, and that HBO has signed-on to air the TV portion of their massive undertaking — presumably with Javier Bardem still set to star as gunslinger Roland Deschain.
Given the success that the network has had with Game of Thrones, The Dark Tower landing at HBO isn’t all that surprising, but we are curious as to whether it will help secure a studio for the film releases. We’re also wondering if this will effect how the project eventually rolls out. Perhaps starting things off on the small-screen to help build a larger, mainstream audience wouldn’t be such a bad idea — especially if it was done intentionally! [via MTV Movies Blog]