Stephen King Being Sued $500 Million Over ‘The Dark Tower’
By Jeremy Dick
Stephen King is being accused of plagiarism as part of a new lawsuit seeking hundreds of millions in damages over The Dark Tower novels.
Stephen King is set to have a fantastic 2017. He has two feature films coming soon based on some of his most popular works. It and The Dark Tower are both easily two of the year’s most anticipated releases. It’s going to be a good year for the King.
But there’s always got to be someone there to rain on the parade. Springing up from out of nowhere comes a lawsuit demanding $500 million in damages. Apparently, another author out there is going after King, because he says King is stealing his ideas.
According to TMZ, the creator of The Rook comic series (I never heard of it, either) is accusing King of plagiarism. They’re saying that King stole the idea for the hero from The Rook for his novel series The Dark Tower. In particular, series hero Roland Deschain (played by Idris Elba in the upcoming film) is allegedly a ripoff of The Rook‘s Restin Dane.
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Sure, their names sound somewhat similar, but they’re insisting this is no coincidence. The Rook‘s creator says that they are both “time-traveling, monster-fighting, quasi-immortal, romantic adventure heroes.”
That’s obviously ridiculous because there are TONS of sci-fi heroes fitting this description. But this one is a ripoff because… the two characters share the same initials? And I guess because they both dress like cowboys, and both books feature a tower.
The first appearance by Restin Dane came in a 1977 comic book debut. A few years later, the first novel in The Dark Tower series came in 1982. According to the TMZ report, King admits to reading those Rook comics. That’s all the evidence they need to file a half-billion dollar lawsuit for plagiarism.
In any case, Idris Elba will make a badass Roland Deschain.
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One can’t help but wonder something about this case. Both books have now been out for literally decades. Why wait until just now to file a lawsuit? It couldn’t be because the feature film is coming out soon and guaranteed to be a hit, right? I think they’re just grasping at straws to get a piece of that Dark Tower pie. And I’m betting a judge will see things that same way.