At the beginning of this year, Javier Bardem was rumoured to have been offered the lead role in Ron Howard’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series. Now, a few months later, it appears that the deal is about to be finalized. Deadline reports that they are currently putting the “finishing touches” on the deal for him to play gunslinger Roland Deschain, the lone protagonist inspired by Clint Eastwood’s The Man with No Name. Ron Howard has already started meeting with other actors to cast alongside him as they move toward a September start for the first of three films.

The deal is supposedly a complicated one because it will span three feature films with a TV series in between each film. This kind of thing hasn’t really been done before, but since there are 7 books in total, it seems like a good way to give them the proper treatment they deserve. Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman are apparently looking at this as “their answer to the Peter Jackson-directed adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings“.

So is Javier Bardem the right guy to carry a massive franchise like this? His acting talent certainly isn’t in question, as he recently won an Oscar for No Country for Old Men and was also nominated previously for Before Night Falls and this past year for Biutiful. He doesn’t have quite as much star power as, say, Viggo Mortensen (a fan favourite who was also up for the role), but with a rumoured part in the next Bond movie, Bardem is just on the cusp of becoming a household name. Are you happy with this casting news? Do you trust Ron Howard to get The Dark Tower right?