The Dark Tower (Nikolaj Arcel, 2017, USA)
The Dark Tower is certainly one of the biggest what-if stories in Hollywood history. Based on Stephen King’s legendary fantasy series and intended to be the start of a major franchise, the 2017 Nikolaj Arcel film seemed to have a lot going for it - a talented director, major cast, and Ron Howard producing. It is hard to determine where things went wrong precisely, though one can see that the project went through multiple starts and stops, and a number of other writers were brought on board - notably, Akiva Goldsman. The resulting film feels incredibly short and rushed, compiled together in the editing room. The film is intended as an origin story for the franchise, but largely dispenses with the events of the first Dark Tower book. The film compiles several elements from the Dark Tower series. Perhaps the film format with the Dark Tower was always destined to fail given the depth and breadth of the universe, but a straight adaptation of the first novel could have been successful. Gi...
