Amazon Saves The Day; Purchases Rights To “The Dark Tower”

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”

Amazon has purchased the rights to Stephen King’s expansive sci-fi/fantasy/western series, “The Dark Tower.” The intention is to create a TV series. This is great news to every King fan out there because the 2017 film adaptation just didn’t cut it.

After production finished for last summer’s film, starring Idris Elba as Roland Deschain, the last Gunslinger of Gilead, and Matthew McConaughey as The Man in Black, Roland’s nemesis, director Nikolaj Arcel announced he would be working on a TV series related to the backstory of Roland.

The film more or less tanked. It was a sad excuse for an adaptation and the 90-minute run-time didn’t nearly cover enough of the material from a SEVEN book series. Due to the films failure, plans for the series were dropped. In comes Amazon to the rescue!

The new show, rumored to be helmed by “Walking Dead” executive producer Glen Mazzara, is supposedly going to be a complete reboot of the series. HALLELUJAH!

“The Dark Tower” is Stephen King’s magnum opus. It is a seven book series which also includes an eighth book that is more of a side story.

“Magnum Opus: a large and important work of art, music, or literature, especially one regarded as the most important work of an artist or writer.” 

What is “The Dark Tower?” Here’s a short synopsis: “The Dark Tower” series tells the tale of Roland’s search for the Dark Tower, a tower that stands at the center of the world, the axis from which everything else revolves around.

Roland’s world is dying, and he believes if he reaches the Tower he can fix it. Of course, there are people attempting to stop him; people who want to see the world destroyed; people like The Man in Black and the Crimson King.

Throughout his journey, Roland makes new friends; Eddie Dean, Susannah, Jake Chambers, Oy (a billy bumbler which is a sort of fox/raccoon-like creature). Together, they form a Ka-tet (definitions of all the weird words used are at the bottom).

Roland and his Ka-tet face many hardships on their journey to the Tower. They save lives, shoot bad-guys and travel between dimensions through doorways or portals. The series is a roller coaster from start to finish.

The seven book series, written from 1981 to 2004, contains over 4,000 pages of material and even expands into King’s other works. “The Dark Tower” is considered the center of King’s storybook universe.

Below, is a rudimentary diagram of how his other novels and stories connect to “The Dark Tower.” There are also more possible connections that haven’t been confirmed or denied yet.

If you have read previous posts, you may notice some familiar titles such as “One for the Road,” and a lot, if not all, of the Castle Rock stories.

Listed here are all “The Dark Tower” novels in order, but the diagram above features 19 other novels, 4 novellas and 8 short stories that have ties to the series. There are also 16 comics for the “The Dark Tower.” “Gwendy’s Button Box,” a novella by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar, was written after the diagram was created, but it also contains possible ties to “The Dark Tower.”

• “The Dark Tower 1: The Gunslinger” (1981) (231 pages)
• “The Dark Tower 2: The Drawing of the Three” (1987) (399 pages)
• “The Dark Tower 3: The Wastelands” (1991) (509 pages)
• “The Dark Tower 4: Wizard and Glass” (1997) (781 pages) This novel is mostly about Roland’s past
• “The Dark Tower 5: Wolves of the Calla” (2003) (709 pages)
• “The Dark Tower 6: Song of Susannah” (2004) (411 pages) 
• “The Dark Tower 7: The Dark Tower” (2004) (830 pages)
• “The Wind Through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel” (2012) (307 pages) This novel is about Roland’s past and a fairy tale his mother used to tell him as a child.

As mentioned before, there are other novels and stories that may have connections to the series, but they have yet to be confirmed or maybe no one has noticed them yet. That’s on you to read, discover and theorize on your own (or find a group of King fans to nerd out with… trust me it’s fun).

“The Dark Tower” contains a plethora of strange words, phrases and places, so, as promised, here’s an extremely small list of definitions:

• Ka: life force, consciousness, duty, destiny, fate
• Ka-tet: a group of people summoned together by Ka
• Thankee: thank you
• Sai: sir or madam
• Gilead: fabled city where Roland grew up, located in Mid-World
• Mid-World: one of the many worlds or levels of the Tower. It is the world Roland inhabits
• The Dark Tower: the center of all creation

As always, read the books before the show! Don’t even bother with the movie. The series is truly incredible, and the connections are endless. Once you get started, you will never want to put these books, or any King books, down. Enjoy, and as always feel free to leave comments and don’t forget to follow!