The Los Angeles Times recently spoke with director Ron Howard about the highly-anticipated adaptation of The Dark Tower, where he revealed his obsessive nature with the project:

"I really can't stop thinking about it. We've been meeting and talking and I've been reading and researching and just kind of living with it. I've been constantly going through stuff and I've just been re-listening to it [on audio books] on my iPod and we've been sending e-mails back and forth, 'What about this approach? What do you think of this idea?' We're finding the shape of it. We're moving quickly now, as quickly as we can, and I feel challenged in the most exciting ways."

Ron Howard will direct the movie from a script by Akiva Goldsman with Brian Grazer producing. They will also be involved in the TV series that will bridge the gap between the movie trilogy. Ron Howard said they spent a year developing this massive endeavor before even taking it to author Stephen King:

"We worked on it for a year before we even met with him. It was all about putting something together that was good enough and getting such an understanding of the material that Stephen King would say, 'Yes, that's the way into this story.'"

Stephen King has written seven The Dark Tower novels, which center on Roland Deschain, a lone gunman who fights his way through the monsters and mutants in this unique landscape. Ron Howard also talked about what he enjoyed about Roland Deschain:

"It's one of the things that really fascinated me about the challenge. We love Roland the Gunslinger but we also like coming back to these worlds and these places. On one hand it is grounded and relatable but on the other hand it's scary and strange and mind-blowing. There's this dream quality to it and the mystery in that is what it's all about - being compelled forward without all the answers."

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