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The bigger the dream, the harsher the wake-up call.

That's the lesson Ron Howard, Akiva Goldsmith and fans of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" are learning today, as Deadline is reporting that Universal Studios has just put the kibosh on the huge and hugely ambitious adaptation of the wildly popular sci-fi series of novels.

Looks like Roland's quest to reach the Dark Tower is going to drag on a little bit longer after all.

Of course, the decision by Universal isn't a huge shock. After all, despite the fact that King's "Dark Tower" books have been perennial bestsellers for decades now, the plan to adapt them for the big screen wasn't exactly a sure thing. That's because, in a laudable effort to try and do the material justice, Howard and Goldsmith, who were on board as director and writer respectively, had proposed a unique arrangement that would have not only required a big screen trilogy, but also a TV series that would have run between films to fill in the gap.

In the end, though, Universal apparently decided that the project was going to cost so much money and be so difficult to pull off -- the plan was to film the first movie and the entire first season of the TV show at the same time -- that it was too big a risk. Because of that, they were only willing to make the first movie, which in turn caused Howard and his crew to back out; without a commitment to the TV, they felt the project wouldn't work.

It's a big blow for fans looking forward to seeing the story of the gunslinger Roland and his band of companions. But there is still some faint hope that another studio might swoop in and scoop up the project. It's unlikely, but hey, you know what they say.

Dreams never really die.