NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 27: Actore Ron Howard attends the Vanity Fair Party at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival at the State Supreme Courthouse on April 27, 2011 in New York City. (Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Ron Howard;
Photo: Stephen Lovekin
Ron Howard is not giving up on The Dark Tower. Several months after Universal passed on Howard’s ambitious, expensive adaptation of the Stephen King series — which is intended to consist of three movies and two intermediate TV seasons — Deadline reports that Warner Bros. is in talks to finance the project, with Howard hoping for a 2013 start date (and the retention of psychologically locked-in lead Javier Bardem). WB is definitely in the market for a Stephen King franchise: The studio recently attached Ben Affleck to adapt King’s The Stand, a sprawling apocalyptic tome that WB thinks can sustain more than one movie.