Ron Howard: Stephen King Approved ‘Dark Tower’ Changes

Ron Howard says Stephen King approved of the changes he made to The Dark Tower.

The 62-year-old director-and-producer has had a difficult time bringing his vision of King’s fantasy novel series to the big screen after both Universal and Warner Bros. pulled out of financing it, but eventually they managed to secure independent funding to make the film.

Having secured the project – following J.J. Abrams initial attachment – Howard went about adapting King’s prose for the big screen, but he insists King wasn’t precious about his work and backed him every step of the way.

Speaking to Deadline the ‘Frost/Nixon’ director said: “Akiva Goldsman first pitched it to me while we were making ‘A Beautiful Mind’ and the rights weren’t available. J.J. Abrams was working on it at first and then Akiva told me J.J. was involved in so many projects he let it go. We started talking about what it could be. I read all the novels and we broke them down. He presented this idea to Stephen King, and this is insider material you might not get, but it was about introducing the Horn of Eld into the very first story. He knew it would allow us to use elements of the novels in a new combination that would give us the latitude to be true to the essence of the novels, but also re-balance and refocus the narrative in a cinematic way.”

“We wanted to restructure the novels to be most cinematic and Stephen King agreed completely and understood the journey we were on immediately and supported it. We used this group to inspire our thinking and stay in the universe of ‘Dark Tower’.”

The film boasts an impressive cast which includes Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey and Tom Taylor. Howard is co-producing with Nikolaj Arcel directing.

The Dark Tower is scheduled for release on February 17, 2017.

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