Sony has premiered a first trailer for its upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s fantasy series, “The Dark Tower,” which stars Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey. Originally set for a February 17, 2017 premiere, the studio moved its release date to August 4, 2017, right in the thick of the competitive summer movie season.
The reason for the date shift was to give the filmmakers more time to complete the film’s visual effects work, which, as you can assume given the source material, is probably heavy.
The trailer, and previously released poster (which will probably draw comparisons to the poster for Christopher Nolan’s “Inception”) are both embedded at the bottom of this post.
Stephen King’s mammoth series has been adapted for the big screen in a planned feature film trilogy, as well as a TV series. Media Rights Capital (MRC) – the production company with the rights to “The Dark Tower” – plans to adapt the fourth book, “Wizard and Glass,” as a spin-off TV series, with a commitment of between 10 and 13 episodes, and a production date start likely in 2017 for TV premiere in 2018. Releasing the film and TV series within a few months apart (maybe 6 – 8 months) might be in consideration.
No network is attached to the TV series yet, but the producers say that a cable network or streaming service (like Netflix, Amazon or Hulu) would be preferable due to the story’s mature/adult content. Since MRC also produces “House of Cards” for Netflix, there’s a chance that “Wizard and Glass” will end up there as well.
Fans will be happy to know that Idris Elba, who stars in the upcoming “The Dark Tower” movie as the gunslinger Roland Deschain, is also attached to appear in the TV series, as is Tom Taylor, who plays Jake Chambers. Matthew McConaughey as the villainous Man in Black in the film, may appear in the TV show as well.
The “Dark Tower” franchise of novels which King himself considers his magnum opus, is a cross-genre work, including elements of science fiction, fantasy, horror and western, with at least 8 novels in the series, published between 1982 and 2012.
Here’s a general plot summary: 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. Even the sun sometimes 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. Along his journey to the Dark Tower, Roland meets a great number of both friends and enemies. For most of the way he is accompanied by a group of people who together with him form the Ka-tet of the Nineteen and Ninety-nine, consisting of Jake Chambers, Eddie and Susannah Dean, and Oy.
Sony will release the first installment of “The Dark Tower” on August 4.
Watch the explosive first trailer below (followed by the poster):
