Stephen King Confirms Idris Elba For THE DARK TOWER and New Film Details Revealed
It's hard to believe that after all these years, Stephen King's The Dark Tower series is actually going to start shooting soon. This film production has had a long history of ups and downs, but it's finally happening, and I couldn't be more excited to see Roland’s harrowing journey to the Dark Tower come to life on the big screen.
King recently confirmed on Twitter that Idris Elba will in fact play Roland in the film, and that was followed by a couple tweets from Elba and Matthew McConaughey, who is playing the film's villain.
It's official: The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed. #DarkTowerMovie @McConaughey @IdrisElba
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) March 1, 2016
.@McConaughey you have one new follower. #DarkTowerMovie https://t.co/5fSKF02C7I
— Idris Elba (@idriselba) March 1, 2016
.@idriselba come and get me, I look forward to it. #DarkTowerMovie https://t.co/4gxqm2GPo3
— Matthew McConaughey (@McConaughey) March 1, 2016
Then there's an interview on EW in which King and director Nikolaj Arcel talk about the film. During that interview Arcel reveals that the first film in the series will start shooting in South Africa in seven weeks. He also talked about casting Elba and McConaughey as the film's hero and villain.
“What Stephen King does best is mixing the everyday, or what you might call the mundane, with the fantastical. In my view, [The Dark Tower] novels are a mix between sci-fi and fantasy and modern times. That exact mix is so Stephen King.”
King went on to reveal that the movie will open with the first line from The Gunslinger, but that the film will jump into the middle of the story instead of starting with the first book. He understands that this might upset some fans, saying:
“[The movie] starts in media res, in the middle of the story instead of at the beginning. Which may upset some of the fans a little bit, but they’ll get behind it, because it is the story.”
Arcel added that a lot of the film takes place "in our day, in the modern world." This could mean that the film is based on the third book in the series, The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands, which sees Roland making an attempt to bring a young boy named Jake into their world from New York City. I guess we'll have to wait and see what exactly they are doing with this story. Remember this is only the first of three films and a TV series that Sony Pictures is developing for The Dark Tower, so they will be able to tell a good amount of the full story.
As far as casting Elba goes, the director explained:
“For me, it just clicked. He’s such a formidable man. I had to go to Idris and tell him my vision for the entire journey with Roland and the ka-tet. We discussed, who is this character? What’s he about? What’s his quest? What’s his psychology? We tried to figure out if we saw the same guy. And we absolutely had all the same ideas and thoughts. He had a unique vision for who Roland would be.”
Arcel then talked about casting McConaughey, saying:
“Matthew is an incredible actor who can do anything. That’s how I feel about Walter Padick. He could do anything…He is this timeless sorcerer, and being a Stephen King fan, I’ve read and experienced Walter in various iterations. He has a very interesting way of seeing the world. He sees it with a sort of delight, even though he is obviously on the wrong side of the light-and-dark spectrum. He’s someone I’ve been having a lot of fun with.”
The movie is set to be released on January 13th, 2017, and we can expect to see even more announcements about the film in the near future, so stay tuned! While we wait for that, tell us what you think about what King and Arcel said in this interview.