Everything we know as Stephen King’s western fantasy epic hits the big screen.
If Lord Of The Rings was a really scary western it would be The Dark Tower, Stephen King’s epic series of fantasy novel that follows a hero called Roland Deschain, aka The Gunslinger, on a quest towards the titular Dark Tower, where all of time and space collides. Hopping between the Wild West-style Mid-World and modern day New York, it’s a sprawling masterwork of monsters, psychopaths and dark sorcery that is somehow being condensed into a film and TV franchise, with the first instalment arriving in August. Here’s everything you need to know about Stephen King’s very own Discworld movie and the 2017 sci-fi blockbuster to rival Blade Runner 2049.
When is The Dark Tower’s release date?
The Dark Tower hits screens on August 4 in both 3D and 2D. It’s projected to launch a TV franchise, which is pencilled in to launch in 2018.
Who’s in The Dark Tower cast?
Idris Elba is taking on the central role of The Gunslinger, leading his ka-tet (a group of accomplices drawn together by ‘ka’, a life-force controlling their fates) across Mid-World in constant battle with The Man In Black, aka Walter Padick, a sorcerer headed to the Dark Tower in order to control all of the kingdoms it contains, like some kind of Large Hadron Collider experiment gone very wrong indeed. In the novels Padick is a faceless figure, but lovers of the swarthier beefcake will be pleased to hear that Matthew McConaughey is playing the part. The unknown Tom Taylor won an international search to find an actor to play Elba’s young boy companion Jake while Bones’ Katheryn Winnick, latter-day Freddie Kruger Jackie Earl Haley and The Neon Demon’s heartless cannibal Abbey Lee Kershaw take pivotal supporting roles.
What’s the plot of The Dark Tower?
The Dark Tower is an odd one to step around – as anyone who has finished reading the novels will know, the very premise itself is at serious risk of being the ultimate series-ruining spoiler. So let’s just say that although it’s a sequel to the novels, it takes plot elements from throughout the series, tracing the story of Jack as he’s drawn out of modern day New York into Mid-World and meets The Gunslinger making his way to the Tower in an attempt to stop it being destroyed and thus save every level of existence from the creeping threat of Hell. So it’s kind of a fresh story in the series, promising something new for fans of the books and people who couldn’t tell their Horn Of Eld from their elbow.
The Dark Tower is close, now. The Crimson King awaits. Soon Roland will raise the Horn of Eld. And blow. pic.twitter.com/rqGSKM3dWL
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) May 19, 2016
The Dark Tower: the trailers
After a series of teaser snippets featuring shots of doors opening onto blasted wastelands and Idris loading his gun with falling bullets – take that, Clint – the official trailer emerged in early May promising a Vue-quaking epic. Between shots of Elba blasting away at monsters with a pair of steaming revolvers and McConaughey drifting wickedly through mist like someone who's only narrlowly escaped being in the King Arthur movie, we see Jake explaining his strange visions of an alternate world to a psychiatrist before actually ending up there and falling in with The Gunslinger. “The tower protects both our worlds,” Idris tells him in a handy plot summary, “if it falls, hell will be unleashed.” Then, amid footage of the tower making a very good impression of falling, Idris heads back into our world, which is on the verge of destruction as if we have somehow invoked the wrath of the great god Covfefe. Check it out below.
Who is directing The Dark Tower?
As is the way of the long-gestating blockbuster, several major names have helmed The Dark Tower at various stages. In 2007, JJ Abrams licensed the novels for the grand total of nineteen dollars, but after three years of development considered himself too much of a Stephen King fanboy to do the franchise justice. He's now focussing on a number of 2017 blockbuster releases such as Cloverfield 2017 and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. In 2010 Ron Howard took it on, envisioning three films linked with six-part TV series, but funding issues for such a mammoth project arose and Howard canned the idea around 2014. Finally, Nikolaj Arcel, director of 2012’s A Royal Affair, took the film on as it was fast-tracked by Sony and filming finally began last April. Frankly, in all that time, you could’ve walked to the Dark Tower and back. Twice.
