The Kelly Experience
March 23rd, 2009, 09:52 PM
Dear Mr. King,
My name is Kelly Raine, and I am an aspiring filmmaker from Portland, Oregon. I am writing for some advice and some input from one creative force in the universe to another.
I’ll be brief because I know you must be an incredibly busy man. I want to know what it would take, in theory, for someone to gain the ability to produce a cinematic version of The Dark Tower. The whole thing. I have been thinking about this since I finished the books a few years ago, and I feel the best way to do it would be with an HBO or Showtime original series, so that character development and subtlety (not to mention insane graphic violence) wouldn’t need to be sacrificed for a widespread-audience based running time. At the same time, such an arrangement would provide the budget for location, talent and special effects. I just read that J.J. Abrams might be developing a treatment for the books, and while I’m no J.J. Abrams, I’d like to be someday. Professionally anyway.
Of course no one understands the depth and breadth of the story like you do, but I feel like I know the story very well and could represent it on film and do it justice.
I have no illusions that a writer of your magnitude would simply hand over the rights to your life’s work to some guy who simply asks for it, and realistically I doubt that this will ever be responded to. However, I’m sure you know that as a creator, you sometimes have to act on these strange impulses that arise in your imagination.
On that note, what I am asking for is a list of things that you feel would deem someone worthy of undertaking something of the nature and magnitude of the Dark Tower Series. It would be immensely helpful to me as an aspiring artist and filmmaker to know exactly what it would take to get to a point in my career where such a thing would be possible. I may never reach it, but then again I suppose everyone has their own Dark Tower they need to pursue, even if the odds are impossibly stacked against them.
If this email ever reaches you, I sincerely hope you will take five minutes out of your life to email me back, even if only to tell me that there is no way in hell you would ever let anyone put their grubby little paws all over your book.
Kelly Raine
My name is Kelly Raine, and I am an aspiring filmmaker from Portland, Oregon. I am writing for some advice and some input from one creative force in the universe to another.
I’ll be brief because I know you must be an incredibly busy man. I want to know what it would take, in theory, for someone to gain the ability to produce a cinematic version of The Dark Tower. The whole thing. I have been thinking about this since I finished the books a few years ago, and I feel the best way to do it would be with an HBO or Showtime original series, so that character development and subtlety (not to mention insane graphic violence) wouldn’t need to be sacrificed for a widespread-audience based running time. At the same time, such an arrangement would provide the budget for location, talent and special effects. I just read that J.J. Abrams might be developing a treatment for the books, and while I’m no J.J. Abrams, I’d like to be someday. Professionally anyway.
Of course no one understands the depth and breadth of the story like you do, but I feel like I know the story very well and could represent it on film and do it justice.
I have no illusions that a writer of your magnitude would simply hand over the rights to your life’s work to some guy who simply asks for it, and realistically I doubt that this will ever be responded to. However, I’m sure you know that as a creator, you sometimes have to act on these strange impulses that arise in your imagination.
On that note, what I am asking for is a list of things that you feel would deem someone worthy of undertaking something of the nature and magnitude of the Dark Tower Series. It would be immensely helpful to me as an aspiring artist and filmmaker to know exactly what it would take to get to a point in my career where such a thing would be possible. I may never reach it, but then again I suppose everyone has their own Dark Tower they need to pursue, even if the odds are impossibly stacked against them.
If this email ever reaches you, I sincerely hope you will take five minutes out of your life to email me back, even if only to tell me that there is no way in hell you would ever let anyone put their grubby little paws all over your book.
Kelly Raine