Stephen King has confirmed that Matthew McConaughey has officially signed on for Sony’s adaptation of the beloved Dark Tower series as the antagonist Walter Padick/The Man in Black/Randall Flagg along with Idris Elba as the series’ hero, Roland Deschain.
McConaughey’s involvement started back in October, but news came officially, month later when he was issued an offer. His signing could be a multi-year commitment, as Sony plans to make The Dark Tower saga into a series of multiple films and a television series.
As reported by EW, King and Nikolaj Arcel, director of the series’ first film, discussed the casting expectations from the movie. Their decision to pick Elba, despite Roland’s in-book description, was “a no-brainer.” “For me, it just clicked. He’s such a formidable man,” said Arcel. “I had to go to Idris and tell him my vision for the entire journey with Roland and the ka-tet… We tried to figure out if we saw the same guy. And we absolutely had all the same ideas and thoughts. He had a unique vision for who Roland would be.”
Arcel went on and explained that skin colour played an important factor, in cases of racial tension between the character and Susannah (a black amputee drawn into the dimension of The Dark Tower), they’re still planning on making that relationship work. “
King also heaped praise on Elba, calling him “one of the best working in the business now. For me the character is still the character. It’s almost a Sergio Leone character, like ‘the man with no name’.” He further added that colour made no difference to him and he is open to all kinds of exciting possibilities for the back-story. As for The Man in Black, King says he “never really thought of” what he’d look like.
Story-wise, King promises that the first words you hear in the first film will be the opening line from the first book in the series, The Gunslinger. “It should start that way,” he said. “I’ve been pretty insistent about that.” That line is, of course, “The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed.”
The first film in the series is set to hit theaters on January 13th, 2017. Akiva Goldsman and Jeff Pinkner adapted the novel for the screen, while the two will also produce alongside Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and Erica Huggins. Mad Max: Fury Road actress Abbey Lee is in talks to play the role of Tirana.
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