'The Dark Tower' Is Officially Dead

Forget romantic comedies, one of the biggest "will they or won't they" stories of late has been whether or not Universal would go through with their plans to adapt the Stephen King fantasy series "The Dark Tower" into a set of movies.

As it turns out, they won't.

Though there was hope of late that the project could pull through with some changes, Universal has officially pulled the plug on the project. While the studio hasn't commented yet, we can assume it was a matter of cost as that was the factor that was delaying the project in the first place.

The project was meant to be massive one involving a trilogy of movies and a television series. The first movie was set to star Javier Bardem and be directed by Ron Howard. Those names, combined with that of Stephen King, must have seemed awfully attractive to Universal...but apparently not attractive enough.

The problem stems from the acquisition of Universal by Comcast back in January. While Universal used to take risks on big-budget dramas like "Public Enemies," the attitude of the studio seems to have changed after the merger.