The Dark Tower movie may not have been a blockbuster, but right now might be the perfect time to try adapting Stephen King's novels again. Here's why.

When it comes to crafting an epic fantasy series, most writers dedicate the vast majority of their working life to the project. J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert Jordan created secondary worlds so immersive and detailed that they had very little time to tell stories not set in Middle Earth or The Randlands. Stephen King on the other hand managed to craft massive bestsellers that mostly stood alone (except for small connections to other works) with a seven-part saga stuck right in the middle. The Dark Tower books tell the story of Roland Deschain, the last gunslinger on a quest to find the dark tower (the apex of all realities) and climb to the top floor. It’s a wild series full of new takes on mythology, despicable villains, and flawed heroes that serve as the spine of King’s entire literary multiverse. Adapting any part of it to film would be difficult, but not impossible.

There was an attempt to bring Roland to the big screen in 2017 starring Idris Elba (an inspired choice) called The Dark Tower, but it was too different from the source material and failed to ignite demand for a series of films the books deserve. However, with Hollywood's current interest in the Multiverse and the success of horror films like The Black Phone, as outlined by Collider, and the It films (which tie into The Dark Tower), this may be the perfect time to try and bring the books back to the big screen. Here's why.

Beginning with the novel The Gunslinger, The Dark Tower is an epic sci-fi/fantasy/horror/western series set in an alternate reality called Mid-World. It is a post-apocalyptic landscape where inhabitants are doomed to wander and serve as playthings (or food) to the bizarre creatures still roaming this hellish place. When we first meet the gunslinger Roland Deschain, he is hunting a wizard referred to as The Man in Black to seek revenge for the fall of his home, the capital city Gilead. Fans of King's pandemic novel The Stand will recognize the object of Roland's vengeance as Randall Flagg, the dark entity corrupting the survivors of Captain Trips. This is only one of many connections The Dark Tower shares with King's other work. The titular tower itself stands in the center of all realities as a kind of support structure, meaning this series is the spine that holds the entirety of King's bibliography together, even works that don't directly reference Roland, the Crimson King, or various other Mid-World residents.

Related: Stephen King Movies That Need a Reboot

The 2017 film wasn't exactly an adaptation of the source material. Fans who stuck with Roland's literary journey from start to finish will tell you that the climax of the final book loops back to the first book while hinting at new possibilities. As the cinematic Roland, Idris Elba carries a very important artifact with him, which suggests that the film actually takes place after the end of the books (you just have to read them to understand.) This means that the movie is more of a sequel than an adaptation, giving the filmmakers free rein to pick and choose elements from the books to include without beholding themselves to what happens on the page. That also makes it possible for a more faithful adaptation to be made and set itself apart from the previous film.

The concept of a multiverse has existed in fiction for decades. While shows like Sliders and Star Trek explored the possibility for years, big-budget Hollywood movies have avoided tackling it to a large degree. With the masterpiece that was Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse winning an Academy Award for Best Animated Film, however, the floodgates have been opened. On the small screen, we had the epic CW crossover event Crisis on Infinite Earths connecting their shows to the wider DC universe. Spider-Man: No Way Home finally gave us the live-action Spider-Men team-up we'd been waiting for. Doctor Strange met Reed Richards and Charles Xavier in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Then there's the surprise hit Everything Everywhere All at Once using the multiverse as a tool for tugging on those heartstrings. The groundwork to explore the dazzling breadth of King's own multiverse and there's no better way to do that than to give audiences The Dark Tower.

Related: Everything Everywhere All at Once Now A24's Highest Grossing Movie Worldwide

Financial success in the horror genre ebbs and flows. During the early part of the 1990s, horror was considered dead. Instead of gory slasher flicks, audiences wanted psychological terror like The Silence of the Lambs. Until, that is, Scream was released, and the genre was rejuvenated. The same can be said with nearly every decade. Eventually, the audience's attention moves elsewhere, and movies intended to horrify you fall out of fashion for a bit. However, if the massive success of It, It: Chapter Two, The Black Phone, and the reboots of Halloween and Scream prove anything, it's that people are craving really good horror movies. The Dark Tower may not be exclusively horror, but its blending of genres could be just the kick in the pants the genre needs to usher in a whole new wave of genre-bending horror.