New Castings for “The Dark Tower”

“The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed.”

Those words by Stephen King defined my childhood. The man in black represented something for me to follow trough out my life. A path laid out before me that I had yet to realize. A journey I’d yet taken.

Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey have been confirmed as the two main players in the upcoming Dark Tower film based on Stephen King’s fantasy saga. Idris Elbawill plays Roland Deschain, the last gunslinger of the once-great kingdom of Gilead, and Matthew McConaughey will play the Man in Black, the man whose actions lay everything out on the table and set the path for the last gunslinger to follow. In “The Dark Tower” Gunslinger Roland Deschain roams an Old West-like landscape in search of the dark tower, in the hopes that reaching it will preserve his dying world. In this world, the gunslingers were reminiscent of the knights of old – spiritual remnants of King Arthur and his court almost.

This has been a project years in the making. Rumors have been circulating for almost a decade. After hearing whispers of Ron Howard and others, Nikolaj Arcel finally got ahold of the screenplay and today, after an announcement from Stephen King, Idris, and even McConaughey, it seems as if it’s well and truly here. I imagine it’s only a matter of time before we hear word on the people cast to play Eddie and Susannah Dean or Jake Chambers. Perhaps we’ll even hear from Roland’s old ka-tet in flashbacks. Who knows? The future is up in the air yet here and it looks great. It seemed as if we’d never get to this point.

Then again, never is the word God listens for when he needs a laugh.