Quote · Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 670: Father's Day w/ Stephen King & Joe Hill
Where this was said
The Dark Tower: Spaghetti Westerns, Dream Casting, and Failed Adaptations
At 13:40 · chapter starts 12:40
Henry admits he's deep into The Dark Tower for the first time and can barely contain himself, while Joe Hill offers the most precise description of the series anyone has given: it's the unified theory of the Stephen King world, a nervous system running through the entire body of his father's work. Stephen traces the origin directly to the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone — he saw them in a cinema, widescreen, and Clint Eastwood's near-total silence shaped Roland the Gunslinger. When the 2017 Idris Elba film is raised, the consensus is that the material needs 25 hours of screen time. Stephen reveals that Javier Bardem was once in talks for Roland. Joe mentions there's currently an attempt to make a 5-season TV series, though its progress is uncertain. The mood is that of something precious that Hollywood has yet to do justice.
Clint Eastwood's silence in the Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns gave Stephen King the template for Roland the Gunslinger. The Dark Tower was always a western at heart.
The Idris Elba Dark Tower film flopped because the saga needs 25 hours, not two. There's currently an attempt to make it a 5-season TV series, but nobody's sure how far along it's gotten.
