Stephen King's The Dark Tower comes to NBC

By April MacIntyre Sep 10, 2010, 18:15 GMT

An interesting mash of feature film releases and network TV series combine forces to bring author Stephen King's opus effort, "The Dark Tower" to light.

Universal Pictures and NBC Universal Television will produce both a film trilogy and a TV series based on King's series of books, the companies announced this past week.

Ron Howard will direct the first film, as well as the first season of the series and his partner Brian Grazer will serve as executive producer.  "Fringe" scribe Akiva Goldsman will write the TV series. All of them took the Oscar in 2002 for "A Beautiful Mind."

The Dark Tower series is comprised of seven books, short stories and comic books.

Premise

A fantastical tale of a gunslinger's quest to find The Dark Tower, a grail-like building said to be the originator of the Universe.  The seven novels have sold more than 30 million copies in 40 countries.

"I've been waiting for the right team to bring the characters and stories in these books to film and TV viewers around the world," King said in a statement.  "Ron, Akiva, Brian along with Universal and NBC have a deep interest and passion for the The Dark Tower series and I know that will translate into an intriguing series of films and TV shows that respect the origins and the characters in The Dark Tower that fans have come to love."

The TV series will debut immediately after the first film to bridge to the second film. The show's second leg will air between the second and third films.

"We are excited to have found partners at Universal who understand and embrace our approach to King's remarkable epic," Howard said in a statement.  "By using both the scope and scale of theatrical filmmaking and the intimacy of television we hope to more comprehensively do justice to the characters, themes and amazing sequences King has given us in The Dark Tower novels.  It might be the challenge of a lifetime but clearly a thrilling one to take on and explore."

King will be featured in one episode of FX series "Sons of Anarchy" in a brilliant cameo as a cleaner hired by Tig (Kim Coates) of the SAMCRO bike club to dispose of a problem.