Stephen King on the inspiration behind Pennywise
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Stephen King explains why ‘The Dark Tower’ failed so miserably
Is there an author that has had more of an impact on the landscape of cinema than Stephen King? Writing the original source material for such movies as The Shining, Carrie, Salem’s Lot, The Mist and many more, King has become an icon behind the scenes of the industry, with his proficiency only being matched by similar such writers as J. R. R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling and Cormac McCarthy.
Writing intricate tales of monstrous creatures and dark psychological nightmares, King has carved out a niche in the horror genre, creating such disturbing villains as Pennywise from the clown thriller It and the psychopathic Jack Torrance from The Shining, among several other iconic characters. Whether they’re disturbing with rage or driven by a dark, possessive force, King contextualises his villains within a tangible framework that makes their presence all the more terrifying.
Though he’s known for his horrors, King has also created several lighter tales that deal in the realms of intricate drama. With that being said, even though the likes of Misery, The Green Mile and The Dark Tower series aren’t reliant on the boundaries of horror, they still remain pretty grizzly tales.
An attempt was made to bring The Dark Tower series, which is made up of nine books altogether, to the big screen in the 2017 movie of the same name. Helmed by the director of A Royal Affair, Nikolaj Arcel, The Dark Tower boasted an impressive cast that included the likes of Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Dennis Haysbert and Tom Taylor, but was a critical and commercial flop upon its release, disappointing fans of the King novels worldwide.
Attempting to tell an abridged, PG-13 version of the author’s complicated story that deals in graphic violence, Arcel’s film had failed before the cameras had even started rolling, failing to capture the tone and spirit of the original novels.
Author Stephen King sat down with Vulture in 2017 to discuss the failure of the movie, pinpointing exactly why the star-studded movie had failed. Explaining the ambition of the project, King stated, “The major challenge was to do a film based on a series of books that’s really long, about 3,000 pages. The other part of it was the decision to do a PG-13 feature adaptation of books that are extremely violent and deal with violent behavior in a fairly graphic way”.
With that being said, however, King had kind words to say to his fellow writer Akiva Goldsman, who wrote the screenplay for the 2017 sci-fi. Lending some positivity to the movie, King added, “I’ve gotta say, I thought Akiva Goldsman did a terrific job in taking a central part of the book and turning it into what I thought was a pretty good movie. The TV series they’re developing now … we’ll see what happens with that. It would be like a complete reboot, so we’ll just have to see”.
The TV series in discussion has since been cancelled by Amazon, leaving the Dark Tower series in limbo as a movie franchise with a wealth of untapped potential.
