The first big screen adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower book series has been in the works for quite some time, and now two crucial roles for the movie have officially been cast.
Over Twitter today, author Stephen King confirmed what has been rumored for a while, that Idris Elba will star as The Gunslinger and Matthew McConaughey will play the villainous Man in Black in the first film adaptation of The Dark Tower series.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, The Dark Tower director Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair) revealed that filming on The Dark Tower begins in seven weeks in South Africa, with Sony Pictures still planning to release the movie in theaters on January 13th, 2017.
Comprised of eight novels and numerous short stories and comic books, King's The Dark Tower series began with 1982's The Gunslinger, which follows Roland of Gilead (aka The Last Gunslinger) as he pursues The Man in Black through the Mid-World, a place with similarities to our own realm. However, the first film adaptation of the series will not focus on the plot of The Gunslinger, instead opting to start somewhere in the middle of The Dark Tower story, despite beginning with the opening line from the first novel. Here's what King told EW:
“[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 will direct from a screenplay that has been written by himself, Anders Thomas Jensen, Akiva Goldsman, and Jeff Pinkner (the lattermost two penned a previous draft). Producing the project are Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Goldsman's Weed Road company, and Imagine Entertainment's Erica Huggins, with Pinkner serving as executive producer.
The Dark Tower adaptation has been previously envisioned as a movie franchise and a TV series, but at this point in time, only one movie is in place with the potential for more to come. Stay tuned to Daily Dead for more updates.
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
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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