It looks like Stephen King's 'Dark Tower' series might be headed to Amazon

It looks an awful lot like Stephen King’s beloved Dark Tower saga is headed for telly. It had been mentioned before that Amazon might have been working on an adaptation, but Amazon themselves were really cagey about it.

Now a few since-deleted tweets suggest that (a) it’s probably happening and (b) Amazon still feel they need to be cagey about it. Why so cagey, Amazon? Be proud of your new project. The book series it’s based on is colossal and sprawling and meta and incredibly well-loved, so you’ve almost certainly got a massive hit on your hands. 

There’s been some impressive internet sleuthing going on to unearth what scant details are known, sleuthing which involves fans of two other nerd-beloved mega-franchises: The Walking Dead and Robert Jordan’s The Wheel Of Time. 

First, some Walking Dead fans spotted that Glen Mazarra, a former writer on that show rumoured for a few years to be working on a Dark Tower adaptation, tweeted a gag about the book series.

Then Amazon’s “Head of Event Series”, Sharon Tal Yguado, added to it, and then, as spotted by a Wheel Of Time fansite, both deleted their tweets…

What can we figure out from these two since-deleted tweets?

• Glen Mazzara knows about The Dark Tower
• Amazon considers him “their writer”
• Fuck working in a treehouse

Does it definitely mean he was working on the TV version of The Dark Tower for Amazon then? This further tweet at least suggests it:

So, he’s Amazon’s writer, writing a script and at least thinking about The Dark Tower. Yeah, it’s happening. Right? But also, what can we figure out from the tweets’ deletion?

• Everyone has secrets
• Everything is a secret
• Trust no-one
• Glen’s script might be shit
• Magic might be real

The Dark Tower book series is an eight-book, genre-straddling tale, part Western, part horror, part sci-fi, laden with connections to King’s other works and occasional cameo appearances from King himself. A good telly version of it could run for years and scratch all the itches that Game Of Thrones, Westworld and American Horror Story manage to scratch.

A movie version came out last year, that was both an adaptation of the first book and a followup to the whole saga. It was not good, managed to both alienate non-fans and infuriate fans, did very poorly and won’t be getting a sequel. It’s a shame, as Idris Elba made a great Gunslinger. 

In an ideal world, they’d emulate what the book series did and bring out a separate kids’ show that was deeply unsettling. Volume three of the series features a children’s book called Charlie The Choo-Choo, which was later published under a pseudonym by King himself…

Absolutely terrifying. But imagine the possibilities of changing that bit of the story so it’s about a TV show, and having that show actually exist on Amazon with loads of subtle messed-upness in it. Like, so the kids watching were unknowingly part of a hideous horrific tale happening elsewhere on the same streaming network. 

Generally, that would seem like something you couldn’t really do, but Amazon do what they want in all other areas, and it’s such a weird thing to do that there probably aren’t actual rules against it.

Do it, Amazon!

(Image: Michael Whelan)