One of Hollywood's most ambitious (and longest gestating) projects is finally bound for the big screen. Stephen King has confirmed that The Dark Tower — an adaptation of his sprawling series of the same name — has formally entered production. Idris Elba will star as protagonist Roland Deschain, opposite Matthew McConaughey as his nemesis, the man in black. Nikolaj Arcel — best known for helming 2012's A Royal Affair, which landed an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film — will direct.
The Dark Tower is often described as King's magnum opus, but the series' length and density — it spans eight hefty novels, contains hundreds of characters, and is basically impossible to coherently summarize — has made it enormously difficult to translate to the big screen. A near-miss came in 2010, when director Ron Howard mounted an ambitious plan to adapt The Dark Tower as a more focused film trilogy, with a supplemental cable TV series to flesh out the franchise's other stories. In the end, King told Entertainment Weekly, "cold feet and money" got in the way.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
6 charming homes for the whimsicalFeature Featuring a 1924 factory-turned-loft in San Francisco and a home with custom murals in Yucca Valley
-
Big tech's big pivotOpinion How Silicon Valley's corporate titans learned to love Trump
-
Stacy Horn's 6 favorite works that explore the spectrum of evilFeature The author recommends works by Kazuo Ishiguro, Anthony Doerr, and more
-
Honda and Nissan in merger talksSpeed Read The companies are currently Japan's second and third-biggest automakers, respectively
-
Taylor Swift wraps up record-shattering Eras tourSpeed Read The pop star finally ended her long-running tour in Vancouver, Canada
-
Drake claims illegal boosting, defamationSpeed Read The rapper accused Universal Music of boosting Kendrick Lamar's diss track and said UMG allowed him to be falsely accused of pedophilia
-
'Wicked' and 'Gladiator II' ignite holiday box officeSpeed Read The combination of the two movies revitalized a struggling box office
-
Jussie Smollet conviction overturned on appealSpeed Read The Illinois Supreme Court overturned the actor's conviction on charges of staging a racist and homophobic attack against himself in 2019
-
Quincy Jones, music icon, is dead at 91Speed Read The legendary producer is perhaps best known as the architect behind Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'
-
OJ Simpson, star athlete tried for murder, dead at 76Speed Read The former football hero and murder suspect lost his battle with cancer
-
Momofuku's 'Chili Crunch' trademark uproarSpeed Read The company's attempt to own the sole rights has prompted backlash
