HIT OR MISS ?

If one were to argue that both the epic poem's Beowolf (Anglo-Saxon) and The Nibelungenlied (Middle High German) were two of the best stories ever recorded , with both based on Northern European myths and legends ..... then the next incarnation of each may have been Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen operas and then later combining parts of both ..... JRR Tolkiens War of the Ring saga .
These legends tell of Dwarves , Dragons , great heroes and of course ... a Ring of great power . All tell of groups of people thrown together to fight epic battles against the forces of evil .

We can all recognize this basic story today as it has been used very often in both literature and on The Silver Screen . Obvious examples for the modern generation are Star Wars , Harry Potter , The Chronicles of Narnia , The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and of course The Police Acadamy series ( just kidding ).

Stephen King has been working on his own version " The Dark Tower " for many years now ......... " The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed ". With those words millions of readers were introduced to Stephen King's Roland , an implacable gunslinger in search of the enigmatic Dark Tower , powering his way through a dangerous land filled with ancient technology and deadly magic. It now appears that it has been optioned by Akiva Goldsman, Ron Howard, and Brian Grazer (writer, director, producer, respectively).
This announcement, made not long after J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot moniker returned the material rights back to Stephen King, has sent fans into a negative frenzy.



Ron Howard has some fine films on his resume (Apollo 13, Frost/Nixon) but he also has some real bummers (The DaVinci Code, Angels and Demons) and his worst films have been scripted by the notorious Akiva Goldsman, who spat in the face of Batman fans with Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, the latter of which is considered one of the worst superhero movies ever made:

While Goldsman’s light and silly genre sensibilities might seem the perfect match for a fantasy franchise, take into account this is a Stephen King fantasy series, which not only deals with deep philosophical and religious concepts brought on my King’s near-fatal accident, but also takes daring risks with prose, weaving King himself into the story in a bizarre meta-narrative twist that makes the books almost impossible to convert into movies.

As the Howard/Grazer/Goldsman trio plans to spin the movie (or movies, depending on if they go for the standard trilogy) into a television series that will help spread the storytelling weight, seeing as this series consists of eight volumes, a seemingly good idea for converting these books, it’s the quality of the movies and TV show that are in question.

Also, Goldsman writes silly things, and The Dark Tower is … well … dark:
Again, remember, this is the same writer that spawned -> this scene

AND AS WITH ALL THINGS HOLLYWOOD , THE BANDWAGON STARTS AS SOON AS ANY PLANS ARE ANNOUNCED ............ HEEEEEEEERE'S JONAH



for more on Jonah Hex , click here --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hex