Stephen King’s The Dark Tower is moving ahead with its adaptation, and two huge actors were just confirmed to have leading roles.
Tuesday morning saw Stephen King tweeting a confirmation about the two lead actors to star in his Dark Tower series adaption.
It's official: The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed. #DarkTowerMovie @McConaughey @IdrisElba
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) March 1, 2016
Even Elba and McConaughey got in on the fun.
.@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
Late last year, we reported that McConaughey was being eyed for the villainous role of the Man in Black, which meant Idris Elba was in talks for the role of Roland Deschain, the gunslinger.
Danish director Nikolaj Arcel is directing the film and co-wrote the screenplay alongside Anders Thomas Jensen, Akiva Goldsman, and Jeff Pinkner.
According to King, “[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.”
A summary of the series reads, “In the story, Roland Deschain is the last living member of a knightly order known as gunslingers and the last of the line of ‘Arthur Eld,’ his world’s analogue of King Arthur. Politically organized along the lines of a feudal society, it shares technological and social characteristics with the American Old West but is also magical. Many of the magical aspects have vanished from Mid-World, but traces remain as do relics from a technologically advanced society. Roland’s quest is to find the Dark Tower, a fabled building said to be the nexus of all universes. Roland’s world is said to have ‘moved on,’ and it appears to be coming apart at the seams. Mighty nations have been torn apart by war, entire cities and regions vanish without a trace and time does not flow in an orderly fashion. Sometimes, even the sun rises in the north and sets in the east. As the series opens, Roland’s motives, goals and age are unclear, though later installments shed light on these mysteries.”
Sony has rights to the adaptation and will move forward with the project. According to Comic Book Resources, previous adaptations of the saga have called for a movie trilogy and interlocking television miniseries. If this is still the case, Elba and McConaughey will be tied up in this project for quite some time, providing its theatrical success.