The Dark Tower Hits the Big Screen

I am a huge fan of Stephen King. Maybe not to the extent that I would chop off his foot and lock him in a back bedroom, but I do love his books. (For the record, in the book Misery Annie Wilkes does not "hobble" Paul Sheldon with a sledge hammer. She cuts off his foot with an axe.) Despite some deviations from the book, Misery was a fantastic film.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case with the movies based on Stephen King's books. I do, however, have high hopes for the big screen version of The Dark Tower, King's legendary eight novel series that is frequently referred to as his magnum opus. Most of us think of Stephen King as just a master of horror, but The Dark Tower is a spectacular  mishmash of sci-fi, western, and fantasy that was actually inspired by Robert Browning's 1855 poem, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.

I won't go too much into the plot of The Dark Tower. As in Browning's poem, the main character, Roland, is on an epic journey across a landscape fraught with dangers to the mysterious dark tower. In King's books Roland Deschain is the last gunslinger in a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by demons and other horrors.

It is uncertain if there will be only one movie that encompasses more than one book or multiple movies featuring Roland Deschain. However, King has confirmed that the movie will begin with the opening line from The Gunslinger: The Dark Tower Book One.
              "The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."
Also, it has been revealed that the Man in Black will be played by none other than Matthew McConaughey.  I must confess, that I get chills just thinking about it.



 I am equally excited that the role of Roland Deschain is going to be played by Idris Elba. The British actor may be familiar to Americans as Heimdall from the Marvel Thor movies.  I happen to particularly adore Elba in the British crime drama, Luther.

With such phenomenal casting I am hoping that The Dark Tower movie will measure up to the books.

The projected release date for The Dark Tower film is January 2017 so if you have not read the books you have plenty of time to check them out first. I admit that it has been quite a few years since I have read The Dark Tower books so I may need to revisit Mid-World before next January.