King Confirms Dark Tower Casting, Production Start and Release Date

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Dark Tower author Stephen King and director/co-writer Nikolaj Arcel confirmed some information about the first movie. The pair verified that Idris Elba has been cast as the Gunslinger Roland Deschain and Matthew McConaughey as the man in black (who has numerous names). They also verified that the plan is to start filming in late April to hit an January 13, 2017 release date.

“The thing is, it’s been a looong trip from the books to the film,” King says, putting it right in context: “When you think about it, I started these stories as a senior in college, sitting in a little sh-tty cabin beside the river in Maine, and finally this thing is actually in pre-production now.” He laughs. “I’m delighted, and I’m a little bit surprised.” “What Stephen King does best is mixing the everyday, or what you might call the mundane, with the fantastical,” says Arcel. “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 says the movie will open with the first line from the first book. “It should start that way,” he says. “I’ve been pretty insistent about that.” “[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,” King says. Arcel declined to specify which books his movie focus on, but he did offer this clue: “A lot of it takes place in our day, in the modern world.”

The Dark Tower is a bit hard to describe briefly but the gist is the Tower is connected to all of King's creations over the decades but by extension it connects to the multiverse and all of creation. In short, the Tower falls, everything ends. The Man in Black wants to end it all, Roland seeks to stop him while also trying to use the Tower to save his world (which is suggested to be a future post-nuclear annihilated Earth) that is dying. In his quest to reach the tower Roland is joined by three (Eddie from the 70s, Susannah from the 60s, and Jake from the 80s) to create his "ka-tet" (a group that is both best friends and family at the same time, formed by destiny). it would take little effort story wise to update the characters to circa 2016 which is about the only aspect of the story that fits the "in the modern world" tease from the director since the Dark Tower series is ultimately a classic western with technology and the supernatural woven in here and there. It will interesting what new direction they are planning. While I am a fan of The Dark Tower, each book represents the decade it was written starting in 1978 until completed in 2006 but more backstory added via Marvel comics over the last 10 years. A faithful translation would be slog to watch and unlikely to succeed but the core story with the core characters that drops a lot of side story and irrelevant sub-plots that ultimately didn't go anywhere could make for a great series of movies. It sounds like the plan is not to take the "Harry Potter" route of faithful adaptation of each book, one movie at a time but instead treat it as one really long story, focusing on certain key points within that timeline. As always time will tell.