Warner Bros. is dusting off the climbing gear to scale Stephen King’s The Dark Tower – for real this time.
Word comes by way of Entertainment Weekly, where the author officially confirmed that Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey – having danced around the roles for so long – are now locked to play lead gunslinger Roland Deschain and Randall Flag (AKA The Man in Black), respectively.
They’ll be joined on their journey by Mad Max: Fury Road starlet Abbey Lee, who boarded the project during the tail-end of pre-production to play the part of Tirana. Guiding King’s seminal tome to the big screen is Nikolaj Arcel (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), and he’ll be largely working with The Gunslinger, the first installment in King’s genre-defining saga.
Speaking to EW, the author himself spoke candidly about not only The Dark Tower‘s prolonged journey to the starting line, but also why he’s a little surprised it arrived in the first place.
“The thing is, it’s been a looong trip from the books to the film. 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.”
Making it officially official, King also Tweeted out the following message to his legions of fans:
It’s official: The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed. #DarkTowerMovie @McConaughey @IdrisElba
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) March 1, 2016
Akiva Goldsman, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Erica Huggins are among the producing team for The Dark Tower. For now, Warner Bros. long-gestating adaptation is tentatively slated for a release on January 13, 2017 and even with production now on the verge of getting underway, don’t be too surprised if and when WB nudges that due date further into 2017.
